View allAll Photos Tagged Gemologist
Henry (Gemologist)
Date: April 21, 2023
Camera: Leica M-A (Typ 127)
Lens: Noctilux-M 50mm f/1.2
Film: Kodak Tmax 100 (ei: 160)
Exposure: 1/125 @ f/2.2
Developer: Kodak HC-110 1:31
Temperature: 20°c
Developing Time: 6’ 0”
Digitized: Nikon D850, Nikkor 60mm Micro AF-S
Full Frame: Nikon ES-2 Film Attachment
-Thomas
The Noctilux 50 1.2 (Reissue)
When I heard Leica was remaking the Noctilux 50 1.2, I added my name to the waitlist…two years later it finally arrived. It is a lens I thought I would never have the privilege to shoot, let alone own. According to Leica the remake is nearly identical to the original of 46 years ago, retaining its historical personality. This lens has a beautiful soft old-school rendering with film…reminiscence of Henri’s character. Looking forward to photographing more with this iconic classic.
-Thomas
Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) at a Baltic Sea cost, probably with a small piece of a Jellyfish. But maybe it was a Gemstone?
Crazy Tuesday Theme: Gemstones
Thanks to everyone who took the time to view, comment, and fave my photo. It’s really appreciated. 😊
Few jewelry brands have such an illustrious history as the House of Harry Winston. Founded in New York City in 1932, by Mr. Harry Winston – an innate gemologist, an intuitive business man, and a dedicated philanthropist – the brand continues to set the standard for the ultimate in fine jewelry and high-end watchmaking. Known throughout his life as the "King of Diamonds", and the "Jeweler to the Stars", Mr. Winston's innovative design philosophy – in which the individual gemstones, rather than the metal settings, would dictate each design – helped to revolutionize fine jewelry designs, and remains at the cornerstone of a timeless aesthetic that continues to inspire all Harry Winston creations. From the acquisition of some of the world's most famous gemstones, including the Jonker, Hope, and Winston Legacy Diamonds, to adorning generations of famous faces, from Hollywood legends to international Heads of State, for over eight decades, the Harry Winston name has been synonymous with the best that there is. Today, the House of Harry Winston continues its tradition of creativity, rarity, and quality without compromise in its retail salons around the world, including: New York, London, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
After I had taken this photo, I asked what she was doing. She said "I was checking if they were real gems"
I don't know HOW she DID.😊
Tanzanite - a variety of the mineral zoisite. Happy Macro Monday! 😊
The tanzanite stone shown here was given to me by a good friend who purchased it as a loose stone during his travels abroad. I had it custom set into this 1” long white gold and diamond pendant by Lucas at ‘Creations Lucas’ in Ottawa.
Zoisite: “Zoisite is a silicate of calcium and aluminum with the composition Ca2Al3(Si3O7)(SiO4)(O,OH)2.” [1].
Tanzanite: “From deep in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania comes tanzanite, a gemstone with only a single known source that has become one of the most intriguing and desirable precious gemstones of modern times. It is a variety of the mineral zoisite and varies from blue, to violet, or purple in colour. Described as ‘a geological phenomenon’, tanzanite is 1,000 times more rare than diamonds” [2].
“In 1967 a Masai tribesman discovered a unique variety of the mineral zoisite at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, east Africa,” explains Melvyn Kirtley, chief gemologist at Tiffany & Co.“ The find was momentous. It was the first transparent blue gemstone discovered in hundreds of years, and represented a whole new species of gemstone” [3].
Originally only available in either Tanzania or Tiffany’s, (in 1968 they were the first jeweller to introduce tanzanite), Tanzanite jewellery is extremely valuable and coveted, both for the gem’s rarity, as well as its beauty” [2]. “Although only discovered in the late 1960s, it has quickly established itself as one of the premier gemstones in the world” [4].
Sources: [1] hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Minerals/zoisite.html
[2] www.shimansky.com/discover-tanzanite/tanzanite-grading/co...
[3] www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/jewellery/paper-flowers/histor...
Few jewelry brands have such an illustrious history as the House of Harry Winston. Founded in New York City in 1932, by Mr. Harry Winston – an innate gemologist, an intuitive business man, and a dedicated philanthropist – the brand continues to set the standard for the ultimate in fine jewelry and high-end watchmaking. Known throughout his life as the "King of Diamonds", and the "Jeweler to the Stars", Mr. Winston's innovative design philosophy – in which the individual gemstones, rather than the metal settings, would dictate each design – helped to revolutionize fine jewelry designs, and remains at the cornerstone of a timeless aesthetic that continues to inspire all Harry Winston creations. From the acquisition of some of the world's most famous gemstones, including the Jonker, Hope, and Winston Legacy Diamonds, to adorning generations of famous faces, from Hollywood legends to international Heads of State, for over eight decades, the Harry Winston name has been synonymous with the best that there is. Today, the House of Harry Winston continues its tradition of creativity, rarity, and quality without compromise in its retail salons around the world, including: New York, London, Paris, Geneva, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
Back in September 2021, the owner of a bookshop that I frequented offered me this little gold stone ring.
The ring weighs 6.53 grams. In 10K yellow gold (41.7% gold, 58.3% other metals), the gold content of the ring is roughly 0.087 troy ounce. At USD $1,795 per troy ounce, the gold melt value of the ring was USD $156, or CAD $200. He made no promise that the greyish-purplish-blue stone was a real gemstone. I was not expert enough to tell by my naked eyes that it was or was not a genuine gemstone. But looking under a source of light, it appeared to show asterism (star effect), so I suspected it could be a star sapphire -- either genuine natural or a synthetic (i.e. man-made).
I took a gamble and after some bargaining, we settled on CAD $350, or the gold melt value plus CAD $150.
I only recently brought the ring to a gemologist for examination. Good news, it's a 4.50 carat genuine natural greyish-purplish blue star sapphire, with a very well-defined and very well-centred six-ray star effect.
Back in September 2021, the owner of a bookshop that I frequented offered me this little gold stone ring.
The ring weighs 6.53 grams. In 10K yellow gold (41.7% gold, 58.3% other metals), the gold content of the ring is roughly 0.087 troy ounce. At USD $1,795 per troy ounce, the gold melt value of the ring was USD $156, or CAD $200. He made no promise that the greyish-purplish-blue stone was a real gemstone. I was not expert enough to tell by my naked eyes that it was or was not a genuine gemstone. But looking under a source of light, it appeared to show asterism (star effect), so I suspected it could be a star sapphire -- either genuine natural or a synthetic (i.e. man-made).
I took a gamble and after some bargaining, we settled on CAD $350, or the gold melt value plus CAD $150.
I only recently brought the ring to a gemologist for examination. Good news, it's a 4.50 carat genuine natural greyish-purplish blue star sapphire, with a very well-defined and very well-centred six-ray star effect.
Bill looked about as comfortable as you can get on the streets, where he's made his home for the past 3 years, reclining on a box drinking a soda. After a minute or two of conversation Bill pulls out a small black pouch filled with his livelihood. The smallest scrapes of gold, clasps, links small but bright stones. The fallings from grace from the store fronts in the Jewelry District in Down Town Los Angeles. These bits are too small to be picked up or to even noticed and so are swept out to the sidewalk where Bill learns a living doing what others will not, seeing them and bothering to collect them. Bill tell us of some of his bigger finds including rubies, sapphires and diamonds and some being a couple of carats big. When he has collected enough scraps to matter he will then sell it back to a few jewelers he trusts. . It seemed that Bill is both well known and liked as two folks passing by stop and greet him. One bragging about Bill saying he knows his stuff more than a lot of the professionals working in the stores.
Medicine Buddha or Medicine dZi bead. Restores healer's power. Fills return ease and laughter. Anyway, everybody is a healer to some extent or other, we are engaged in treatment and self-treatment. dZi bead Medicine does not cure the physical body, but it gives strength and restores the balance of Qi energy. The dZi bead works with our astral body, with such energies that are primary.
This dZi bead contains "Dragon's Blood" as the Tibetans call the small red dots of iron oxides, which are known in China as Cinnabar dots.
As a gemologist, I can say that cinnabar as a mineral (HgS - mercury sulfide) is not present in Agate, the Chinese call these points due to their color. Every artist knows the color "cinnabar", as the paint has been made on the basis of this mineral since ancient times. Red dots are formed in old agate beads, but not in all beads. Dragon Blood especially often appears in beads that are continuously worn in contact with the body. This is due to the temperature, when worn, oxidation processes are faster, but still, take hundreds of years. Sometimes the dots are so small that they are only visible at high magnifications.
Many cinnabar beads can be found on sale today,
but almost all of them will be glass copies of old beads. In general, the modern dZi bead market looks like a competition for fakes.
The name Chong (or Chung) dZi bead originated in pre-Buddhist times when the Bon religion was widespread in Tibet. This was the name of any beads made of Agate, Carnelian, or Holcedony, possibly ancient, but the creation of which did not use the canons according to which Pure dZi is made. These were natural mineral beads of various shapes, sometimes with stripes of natural origin. Other beads from Asia were also referred to them. Afghanistan, China, and Oceania, and etched carnelian beads.
Dzi Medicine, as well as beads with eyes and other symbols, was considered in Tibet to be Pure dZi, since they were made according to the same canons.
During the reign of the Ming dynasty in China (about 500-600 years ago), a large number of Chinese beads, very similar to the Tibetan Pure dZi of Medicine, came to Tibet. Perhaps this is how China tried to influence Tibet. It has always been a difficult relationship.
Back in the days when beads were not known at all and were not in demand in the West. But in Tibet, beads were involved in the trade, for example, a good bead could be exchanged for a bag of rice. Since there were few good dZi masters in China, the Chinese generally did a lot of Medicine dZi beads, as such a symbol is easy to produce.
I heard this version of the origin of the name Chong DZi from my mentor, who lived in Dharamshala and communicated with Tibetan monks. This is different from what I later read on the Internet, however, I think that this information should not be lost.
Today many people call "Chong" dZi all the Medicine Striped Beads, although by this version this is not correct.
So Chong dZi translates to "less desirable", but essentially it means "done in some way out of our control, and that doesn't guarantee you quality internal content."
At its core, almost the entire dZi beads in the modern market today are the Chong (or Chung) dZi beads.
You can see photos of this necklace in a separate album.
www.flickr.com/photos/195636791@N03/albums/72177720299869459
Today's prompt was A Gemstone. Not being much of a gemologist or a jeweller, I asked my old friend, Mr Google and he pointed me at an Aquamarine which I purchased on-line so that I could sketch it for today's prompt. It was a lot smaller than I'd anticipated, but with the help of a camera and a macro lens I got a big enough image to sketch the gemstone you see here.
Palomino Blackwing soft pencil
Pigma micron 01 black pen
W&N watercolours
Seawhite A4 sketch book
#EDiM
You didn't really believe that story, did you?
This is Kunzite. Konar Valley, Konar Province, Pakistan. The other minerals are not identified.
"Kunzite is the best-known variety of the mineral spodumene. It’s named after famed gemologist George Frederick Kunz, who was the first to identify it as a unique variety of spodumene. Kunzite gets its delicate color from trace amounts of manganese. California’s San Diego County is an important source of kunzite.
"Kunzite is the light pink to violetish purple variety of the mineral spodumene. It’s found in Afghanistan, Brazil, Madagascar, and the US state of California. The gem was named after pioneering gemologist George Frederick Kunz (1856-1932).
"Kunzite has two perfect cleavage directions. It’s pleochroic, with the best color visible when you look down the length of the crystal. Cutters keep these factors in mind when they orient gems for finishing. They might also cut a kunzite deep to emphasize its pink to violet color.
On a personal note. My daughter is interested in gems, minerals, rocks, and stones. We took a daytrip to Tucson. It was our first time to the shows. There are actually something like 3 dozen shows around Tucson. We went to the Tucson Convention Center for about 3 hours and then to the Kino Sports Complex for about 1.5 hours. We had hoped to get to the 22nd St show and the GIGM Show on W. Starr Pass but did not have time. I wish I had bought my tickets in advance, it would have saved about 30-40 minutes of waiting in line at the Convention Center. I'm glad I brought a Circular Polarizer to cut some of the glare of the glass exhibit cases.
www.visittucson.org/tucson-gem-mineral-fossil-showcase/
"Every year the world-renowned Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase is like a time portal, a trip around the world, and a treasure hunt all rolled into one. Every winter, more than 65,000 guests from around the globe descend upon Tucson, AZ, to buy, sell, trade, and bear witness to rare and enchanting gems, minerals, and fossils at more than 40 gem show locations across the city. If you're planning a winter visit to Tucson, you won't want to miss this three-week-long event.
"Whether you’re looking for a $5 shimmering crystal necklace or a show-stopping $200,000 crystallized rock from an exotic location, the Tucson Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Shows have something for everyone.
www.visittucson.org/blog/post/gems-and-minerals/
TGMS 2024
Tucson Gem Show 2024
The Hope Diamond...
The history of the stone which was eventually named the Hope diamond began when the French merchant traveller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, purchased a 112 3/16-carat diamond. This diamond, which was most likely from the Kollur mine in Golconda, India, was somewhat triangular in shape and crudely cut. Its color was described by Tavernier as a "beautiful violet."
Tavernier sold the diamond to King Louis XIV of France in 1668 with 14 other large diamonds and several smaller ones. In 1673 the stone was recut by Sieur Pitau, the court jeweler, resulting in a 67 1/8-carat stone. In the royal inventories, its color was described as an intense steely-blue and the stone became known as the "Blue Diamond of the Crown," or the "French Blue." It was set in gold and suspended on a neck ribbon which the king wore on ceremonial occasions.
King Louis XV, in 1749, had the stone reset by court jeweler Andre Jacquemin, in a piece of ceremonial jewelry for the Order of the Golden Fleece (Toison D'Or). In 1791, after an attempt by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to flee France, the jewels of the French Royal Treasury were turned over to the government. During a week-long looting of the crown jewels in September of 1792, the French Blue diamond was stolen.
In 1812 a deep blue diamond described by John Francillion as weighing 177 grains (4 grains = 1 carat) was documented as being in the possession of London diamond merchant, Daniel Eliason. Strong evidence indicates that the stone was the recut French Blue and the same stone known today as the Hope Diamond. Several references suggest that it was acquired by King George IV of England. At his death, in 1830, the king's debts were so enormous that the blue diamond was likely sold through private channels.
The first reference to the diamond's next owner is found in the 1839 entry of the gem collection catalog of the well-known Henry Philip Hope, the man from whom the diamond takes its name. Unfortunately, the catalog does not reveal where or from whom Hope acquired the diamond or how much he paid for it.
Following the death of Henry Philip Hope in 1839, and after much litigation, the diamond passed to his nephew Henry Thomas Hope and ultimately to the nephew's grandson Lord Francis Hope. In 1901 Lord Francis Hope obtained permission from the Court of Chancery and his sisters to sell the stone to help pay off his debts. It was sold to a London dealer who quickly sold it to Joseph Frankels and Sons of New York City, who retained the stone in New York until they, in turn, needed cash. The diamond was next sold to Selim Habib who put it up for auction in Paris in 1909. It did not sell at the auction but was sold soon after to C.H. Rosenau and then resold to Pierre Cartier that same year.
In 1910 the Hope diamond was shown to Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, of Washington D.C., at Cartier's in Paris, but she did not like the setting. Cartier had the diamond reset and took it to the U.S. where he left it with Mrs. McLean for a weekend. This strategy was successful. The sale was made in 1911 with the diamond mounted as a headpiece on a three-tiered circlet of large white diamonds. Sometime later it became the pendant on a diamond necklace as we know it today. Mrs. McLean's flamboyant ownership of the stone lasted until her death in 1947.
Harry Winston Inc. of New York City purchased Mrs. McLean's entire jewelry collection, including the Hope diamond, from her estate in 1949. This collection also included the 94.8-carat Star of the East diamond, the 15-carat Star of the South diamond, a 9-carat green diamond, and a 31-carat diamond which is now called the McLean diamond.
For the next 10 years the Hope diamond was shown at many exhibits and charitable events world wide by Harry Winston Inc., including as the central attraction of their Court of Jewels exhibition. On November 10, 1958, they donated the Hope diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, and almost immediately the great blue stone became its premier attraction.
The Hope diamond has left the Smithsonian only four times since it was donated. In 1962 it was exhibited for a month at the Louvre in Paris, France, as part of an exhibit entitled Ten Centuries of French Jewelry. In 1965 the Hope diamond traveled to South Africa where it was exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg. In 1984 the diamond was lent to Harry Winston Inc., in New York, as part of the firm's 50th anniversary celebration. In 1996 the Hope diamond was again sent to Harry Winston Inc., in New York, this time for cleaning and some minor restoration work.
The weight of the Hope diamond for many years was reported to be 44.5 carats. In 1974 it was removed from its setting and found actually to weigh 45.52 carats. It is classified as a type IIb diamond, which are semiconductive and usually phosphoresce. The Hope diamond phosphoresces a strong red color, which will last for several seconds after exposure to short wave ultra-violet light. The diamond's blue coloration is attributed to trace amounts of boron in the stone.
In the pendant surrounding the Hope diamond are 16 white diamonds, both pear-shapes and cushion cuts. A bail is soldered to the pendant where Mrs. McLean would often attach other diamonds including the McLean diamond and the Star of the East. The necklace chain contains 45 white diamonds.
In December of 1988, a team from the Gemological Institute of America visited the Smithsonian to grade the great blue stone using present day techniques. They observed that the gem shows evidence of wear, has a remarkably strong phosphorescence, and that its clarity is slightly affected by a whitish graining which is common to blue diamonds. They described the color as a fancy dark grayish-blue. An examination on the same day by another gemologist using a very sensitive colorimeter revealed that there is a very slight violet component to the deep blue color which is imperceptible to the naked eye. Still, one can only wonder that the original 112 3/16-carat stone bought by Tavernier was described as "un beau violet" (a beautiful violet).
The Legend Behind The Hope Diamond
This great blue diamond is perhaps the most notorious gem in history. It has left behind it a trail of so many unlucky owners that it has been popularly supposed to be cursed. The Hope was mined in India, and the 112-carat gem was brought to France in 1668. It was said that a curse rested on it, for a thief was reputed to have stolen the diamond from the eye of a statue of the Hindu goddess Sita, wife of Rama.
Tavernier, who brought the gem from India to France, sold it to Louis XIV, who had it cut into a 67-carat heart-shaped stone and named it the Blue Diamond of the Crown. Tavernier is said to have been killed by wild dogs on his next trip to India.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette inherited the French Blue, as it was popularly known. In 1792, about the time of their executions, the French Blue was stolen from the Garde-Meuble together with all of the French crown jewels. Some of the gems taken in this robbery were recovered, but not the Blue Diamond of the Crown.
It is intriguing to note that a gem resembling the Hope is worn by Queen Maria Louisa of Spain in a portrait painted by Goya in 1800. There are reports that the stolen French Blue was recut to its present size by Wilhelm Fals, a Dutch diamond cutter. Fals is said to have died of grief after his son, Hendrick stole the gem from him. Hendrick, in turn, committed suicide.
In 1830, there appeared in London a 44.5-carat deep blue oval-cut diamond the gem experts agree was the French Blue recut to conceal its identity. Henry Hope bought i, and since then it has been known as the Hope diamond.
The Hope moved on. An Eastern European prince gave it to an actress of the Folies Bergere and later shot her. A Greek owner and his family plunged to their death over a precipice in an automobile accident. The Turkish sultan Abdul-Hamid II had owned the gem only a few months when an army revolt toppled him from his throne in 1909.
Evalyn Walsh McLean, a wealthy and eccentric American social figure, bought the Hope diamond in 1911. Her son was killed in an automobile accident, her husband died in a mental hospital, and her daughter died in 1946 of an overdose of sleeping pills.
After Mrs. McLean’s death in 1947, New York jeweler Harry Winston purchased her jewels, including the Hope. He gave the gem to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1958, no doubt with a certain sense of relief.
***When Harry Winston "gave" the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian, he mailed it via registered mail which was delivered by the US Postal Service. The package arrived at Union Station in Washington DC via train from an overnight trip from New York City.
The package was insured for $142.00 and had postage in the amount of $2.90 on it.
James Todd was the USPS mail carrier who delivered the package to the Smithsonian Museum. As with so many others, the curses of anyone who handled the Hope Diamond also impacted James Todd. Shortly after delivering the package, he was injured by a truck which ran over and crushed his leg. Soon after that, Todd experienced three additional incidents: his wife had a heart attack, his dog died after getting strangled by his own leash, and lastly Todd's house was destroyed in a fire.
Coincidence or not, the diamond seems to have brought enormous troubles in its train.
Blue color Ye Ming Zhu cabochon and Moonstone wrap - YMZ - Night Glowing Pearl also called Celestial Energy Gems or Dragon's stone. The only gems I have ever felt a significant positive change in my life and I have been around every crystal, gem, pearl in the world. Charges by sunlight, blacklight, and chi (your own energy). Very limited and priced accordingly based on size and strength, please message me if you are interested. I am the only distributor in South East Asia. The YMZ motto is: Health, Wealth, Happiness, and Luck. #russian #artist #gemologist #gem #crystal #yemingzhu #glowingpearl #glow #rare #unique #chakra #healing #celestial #energy #meditation #luciddreaming #health #wealth #happiness #luck #gift #love
MAIN dZi bead Medicine
Medicine Buddha or Medicine dZi bead. Restores healer's power. Fills return ease and laughter. Anyway, everybody is a healer to some extent or other, we are engaged in treatment and self-treatment. dZi bead Medicine does not cure the physical body, but it gives strength and restores the balance of Qi energy. The dZi bead works with our astral body, with such energies that are primary.
This dZi bead contains "Dragon's Blood" as the Tibetans call the small red dots of iron oxides, which are known in China as Cinnabar dots.
As a gemologist, I can say that cinnabar as a mineral (HgS - mercury sulfide) is not present in Agate, the Chinese call these points due to their color. Every artist knows the color "cinnabar", as the paint has been made on the basis of this mineral since ancient times. Red dots are formed in old agate beads, but not in all beads. Dragon Blood especially often appears in beads that are continuously worn in contact with the body. This is due to the temperature, when worn, oxidation processes are faster, but still, take hundreds of years. Sometimes the dots are so small that they are only visible at high magnifications.
Many cinnabar beads can be found on sale today,
but almost all of them will be glass copies of old beads. In general, the modern dZi bead market looks like a competition for fakes.
The name Chong (or Chung) dZi bead originated in pre-Buddhist times when the Bon religion was widespread in Tibet. This was the name of any beads made of Agate, Carnelian, or Holcedony, possibly ancient, but the creation of which did not use the canons according to which Pure dZi is made. These were natural mineral beads of various shapes, sometimes with stripes of natural origin. Other beads from Asia were also referred to them. Afghanistan, China, and Oceania, and etched carnelian beads.
Dzi Medicine, as well as beads with eyes and other symbols, was considered in Tibet to be Pure dZi, since they were made according to the same canons.
During the reign of the Ming dynasty in China (about 500-600 years ago), a large number of Chinese beads, very similar to the Tibetan Pure dZi of Medicine, came to Tibet. Perhaps this is how China tried to influence Tibet. It has always been a difficult relationship.
Back in the days when beads were not known at all and were not in demand in the West. But in Tibet, beads were involved in the trade, for example, a good bead could be exchanged for a bag of rice. Since there were few good dZi masters in China, the Chinese generally did a lot of Medicine dZi beads, as such a symbol is easy to produce.
I heard this version of the origin of the name Chong DZi from my mentor, who lived in Dharamshala and communicated with Tibetan monks. This is different from what I later read on the Internet, however, I think that this information should not be lost.
Today many people call "Chong" dZi all the Medicine Striped Beads, although by this version this is not correct.
So Chong dZi translates to "less desirable", but essentially it means "done in some way out of our control, and that doesn't guarantee you quality internal content."
At its core, almost the entire dZi beads in the modern market today are the Chong (or Chung) dZi beads.
ancient Tibet
You can see photos of this necklace in a separate album.
www.flickr.com/photos/195636791@N03/albums/72177720299869459
Medicine Buddha or Medicine dZi bead. Restores healer's power. Fills return ease and laughter. Anyway, everybody is a healer to some extent or other, we are engaged in treatment and self-treatment. dZi bead Medicine does not cure the physical body, but it gives strength and restores the balance of Qi energy. The dZi bead works with our astral body, with such energies that are primary.
This dZi bead contains "Dragon's Blood" as the Tibetans call the small red dots of iron oxides, which are known in China as Cinnabar dots.
As a gemologist, I can say that cinnabar as a mineral (HgS - mercury sulfide) is not present in Agate, the Chinese call these points due to their color. Every artist knows the color "cinnabar", as the paint has been made on the basis of this mineral since ancient times. Red dots are formed in old agate beads, but not in all beads. Dragon Blood especially often appears in beads that are continuously worn in contact with the body. This is due to the temperature, when worn, oxidation processes are faster, but still, take hundreds of years. Sometimes the dots are so small that they are only visible at high magnifications.
Many cinnabar beads can be found on sale today,
but almost all of them will be glass copies of old beads. In general, the modern dZi bead market looks like a competition for fakes.
The name Chong (or Chung) dZi bead originated in pre-Buddhist times when the Bon religion was widespread in Tibet. This was the name of any beads made of Agate, Carnelian, or Holcedony, possibly ancient, but the creation of which did not use the canons according to which Pure dZi is made. These were natural mineral beads of various shapes, sometimes with stripes of natural origin. Other beads from Asia were also referred to them. Afghanistan, China, and Oceania, and etched carnelian beads.
Dzi Medicine, as well as beads with eyes and other symbols, was considered in Tibet to be Pure dZi, since they were made according to the same canons.
During the reign of the Ming dynasty in China (about 500-600 years ago), a large number of Chinese beads, very similar to the Tibetan Pure dZi of Medicine, came to Tibet. Perhaps this is how China tried to influence Tibet. It has always been a difficult relationship.
Back in the days when beads were not known at all and were not in demand in the West. But in Tibet, beads were involved in the trade, for example, a good bead could be exchanged for a bag of rice. Since there were few good dZi masters in China, the Chinese generally did a lot of Medicine dZi beads, as such a symbol is easy to produce.
I heard this version of the origin of the name Chong DZi from my mentor, who lived in Dharamshala and communicated with Tibetan monks. This is different from what I later read on the Internet, however, I think that this information should not be lost.
Today many people call "Chong" dZi all the Medicine Striped Beads, although by this version this is not correct.
So Chong dZi translates to "less desirable", but essentially it means "done in some way out of our control, and that doesn't guarantee you quality internal content."
At its core, almost the entire dZi beads in the modern market today are the Chong (or Chung) dZi beads.
These Historical Figures by George Stuart are in the permanent collection of the Ventura County Museum in Ventura, California. The quarter scale diamond replicas in the historical figures accessories as well as the full size cubic zirconia replicas exhibited with the figures were crafted by gemologist Scott Sucher of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
These Historical Figures by George Stuart are in the permanent collection of the Ventura County Museum in Ventura, California. The quarter scale diamond replicas in the historical figures accessories as well as the full size cubic zirconia replicas exhibited with the figures were crafted by gemologist Scott Sucher of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Certified Gemologist
THE WORLD'S LARGEST SHOPPING CENTER JEWELRY STORE
Lloyd Center - Portland, Oregon
Universal Match Corp.
Made by Dexter Press
48542-B
CAPA-016294
When I was a kid the Four Corners was the main part of town. Most of the businesses lined both sides of Main and Commerce Street. It was a magical time back in the 60's. The only original businesses left today are Sayers Jewelers & Gemologists, Smyrna Sporting Goods and Faries Funeral Directors Inc.
Strobist: AB1600 with gridded 60X30 softbox overhead. AB800 open behind backdrop of white faux suede. Triggered by Cybersync.
Trinniberg gets a hug after winning the Bay Shore Stakes. (copyright Scott Serio / Eclipse Sportswire, all rights reserved)
These Historical Figures by George Stuart are in the permanent collection of the Ventura County Museum in Ventura, California. The quarter scale diamond replicas in the historical figures accessories as well as the full size cubic zirconia replicas exhibited with the figures were crafted by gemologist Scott Sucher of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This cubic zirconia reproduction of the Cullinan I diamond was made by gemologist Scott Sucher of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The original diamond, also known as the Great Star of Africa, is the largest gem-quality diamond ever found. It was placed into a scepter that is part of the British Crown Jewels kept in the Tower of London. Surprisingly, the replica is slightly heavier than the real diamond.
The replica was on display at the "Diamonds are Forever" exhibit at the Ventura County Museum in Ventura, California.
I recently bought a 22-gram morganite rough from an antique market. Morganite is a beryl*, the same class of mineral as its much more famous green variety (emeralds) and blue variety (aquamarines). Unlike emeralds and aquamarines, the pale, very slightly purplish pink morganites are not expensive. This 110-carat rough only cost me CAD $20 (USD $15, EUR 14, GBP 11.80).
* Beryl is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2(Si O3)6.
By the way, morganite was named after John Pierpoint ( J.P. ) Morgan the well-known banker. Mr. Morgan was an avid gemstone collector and close friend of gemologist George Kunz. When the pink beryl was first discovered in Madagascar in 1910, Mr. Kunz proposed the name morganite at a meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences on 5 December 1910 to honor his friend and customer J.P. Morgan.
Blue corundum (sapphire) from Sri Lanka. (~1.65 centimeters tall)
A mineral is a naturally-occurring, solid, inorganic, crystalline substance having a fairly definite chemical composition and having fairly definite physical properties. At its simplest, a mineral is a naturally-occurring solid chemical. Currently, there are over 6100 named and described minerals - about 200 of them are common and about 20 of them are very common. Mineral classification is based on anion chemistry. Major categories of minerals are: elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, and silicates.
The oxide minerals all contain one or more oxide anions (O-2). The oxide minerals include species that are hydroxy-oxides. The hydroxide minerals (those with one or more OH-) are usually considered together with the oxides. Many sulfide minerals are not stable in Earth-surface conditions. In the presence of oxygen and moisture, sulfide minerals tend to tarnish or alter to oxides and hydroxy-oxides. All except the most inert elements (such as the platinum-group elements and gold and noble gases) readily form oxides. Gold oxide forms only under special conditions.
Corundum is aluminum oxide - Al2O3. At H≡9, it is the hardest common mineral, apart from diamond. Corundum forms hexagonal crystals, which is evident even in many river-worn specimens. The hexagonal columns of corundum typically have well-developed flat tops & bottoms. These flat ends are not cleavage planes - corundum has no cleavage. The cleavage-looking flat tops & bottoms of corundum are called partings (pseudocleavage). Additional breakages will not be along planar surfaces.
The color of corundum is variable - it can be any color, including plaid patterns. If transparent and relatively fracture-free & inclusion-free, corundum is said to be of gem-quality, and the color determines the name of the gem.
deep red = ruby
blue = sapphire
pale red = sapphire
pale green = sapphire
purple = sapphire
yellow = sapphire
Sapphire covers the largest number of colors. Gemologists and gem dealers will often deceivingly use the term "oriental" in referring to non-blue colored sapphires. For example, "oriental amethyst" is purple corundum, "oriental topaz" is yellow corundum, "oriental emerald" is green corundum, etc. Black-colored corundum is often called emery. Corundum-rich rocks are also called emery, or corundite (www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/albums/72157646922258716).
The cornflower blue-colored sapphire crystal shown above is from the famous gem gravels of Ceylon, off the southern tip of India.
Locality: "gem gravels", unrecorded/undisclosed mine attributed to the Ratnapura area, Ratnapura District, Sabaragamuwa Province, southern Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
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See locality info. at:
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Photo gallery of corundum and sapphire:
www.mindat.org/gallery.php?min=1136
and
Ancient Tibetan dZi
You can see photos of this necklace in a separate album.
www.flickr.com/photos/195636791@N03/albums/72177720299869459
Medicine Buddha or Medicine dZi bead. Restores healer's power. Fills return ease and laughter. Anyway, everybody is a healer to some extent or other, we are engaged in treatment and self-treatment. dZi bead Medicine does not cure the physical body, but it gives strength and restores the balance of Qi energy. The dZi bead works with our astral body, with such energies that are primary.
This dZi bead contains "Dragon's Blood" as the Tibetans call the small red dots of iron oxides, which are known in China as Cinnabar dots.
As a gemologist, I can say that cinnabar as a mineral (HgS - mercury sulfide) is not present in Agate, the Chinese call these points due to their color. Every artist knows the color "cinnabar", as the paint has been made on the basis of this mineral since ancient times. Red dots are formed in old agate beads, but not in all beads. Dragon Blood especially often appears in beads that are continuously worn in contact with the body. This is due to the temperature, when worn, oxidation processes are faster, but still, take hundreds of years. Sometimes the dots are so small that they are only visible at high magnifications.
Many cinnabar beads can be found on sale today,
but almost all of them will be glass copies of old beads. In general, the modern dZi bead market looks like a competition for fakes.
The name Chong (or Chung) dZi bead originated in pre-Buddhist times when the Bon religion was widespread in Tibet. This was the name of any beads made of Agate, Carnelian, or Holcedony, possibly ancient, but the creation of which did not use the canons according to which Pure dZi is made. These were natural mineral beads of various shapes, sometimes with stripes of natural origin. Other beads from Asia were also referred to them. Afghanistan, China, and Oceania, and etched carnelian beads.
Dzi Medicine, as well as beads with eyes and other symbols, was considered in Tibet to be Pure dZi, since they were made according to the same canons.
During the reign of the Ming dynasty in China (about 500-600 years ago), a large number of Chinese beads, very similar to the Tibetan Pure dZi of Medicine, came to Tibet. Perhaps this is how China tried to influence Tibet. It has always been a difficult relationship.
Back in the days when beads were not known at all and were not in demand in the West. But in Tibet, beads were involved in the trade, for example, a good bead could be exchanged for a bag of rice. Since there were few good dZi masters in China, the Chinese generally did a lot of Medicine dZi beads, as such a symbol is easy to produce.
I heard this version of the origin of the name Chong DZi from my mentor, who lived in Dharamshala and communicated with Tibetan monks. This is different from what I later read on the Internet, however, I think that this information should not be lost.
Today many people call "Chong" dZi all the Medicine Striped Beads, although by this version this is not correct.
So Chong dZi translates to "less desirable", but essentially it means "done in some way out of our control, and that doesn't guarantee you quality internal content."
At its core, almost the entire dZi beads in the modern market today are the Chong (or Chung) dZi beads.
Presented here is another of my upcycled-gemstone jewellery. The gemstone here is a collection of chips of genuine & natural Turquoise, beaten and bonded together with copper, along with little bit of coloured cement-glue. This is probably as close as possibly you can get to large pieces of Turquoise.
Genuine gemologists and gem-traders know very well, how rare are turquoises to get. What you usually get in market are either man-made materials or a natural gemstone, grey-veined Howlite (dyed blue) to imitate Turquoise colour and style.
"With depleting mines, turquoise, the most sacred stone to the Navajo, has become increasingly rare, and that is why Turquoise is becoming rarer than Diamonds." ~Smithsonian Institution (The world's largest museum and research complex).
Read more: www.smithsonianmag.com/…/exquisite-turquoise-more-…/…
Blue corundum (sapphire) (~5.0 centimeters across at its widest)
A mineral is a naturally-occurring, solid, inorganic, crystalline substance having a fairly definite chemical composition and having fairly definite physical properties. At its simplest, a mineral is a naturally-occurring solid chemical. Currently, there are over 6100 named and described minerals - about 200 of them are common and about 20 of them are very common. Mineral classification is based on anion chemistry. Major categories of minerals are: elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, and silicates.
The oxide minerals all contain one or more oxide anions (O-2). The oxide minerals include species that are hydroxy-oxides. The hydroxide minerals (those with one or more OH-) are usually considered together with the oxides. Many sulfide minerals are not stable in Earth-surface conditions. In the presence of oxygen and moisture, sulfide minerals tend to tarnish or alter to oxides and hydroxy-oxides. All except the most inert elements (such as the platinum-group elements and gold and noble gases) readily form oxides. Gold oxide forms only under special conditions.
Corundum is aluminum oxide - Al2O3. At H≡9, it is the hardest common mineral, apart from diamond. Corundum forms hexagonal crystals, which is evident even in many river-worn specimens. The hexagonal columns of corundum typically have well-developed flat tops & bottoms. These flat ends are not cleavage planes - corundum has no cleavage. The cleavage-looking flat tops & bottoms of corundum are called partings (pseudocleavage). Additional breakages will not be along planar surfaces.
The color of corundum is variable - it can be any color, including plaid patterns. If transparent and relatively fracture-free & inclusion-free, corundum is said to be of gem-quality, and the color determines the name of the gem.
deep red = ruby
blue = sapphire
pale red = sapphire
pale green = sapphire
purple = sapphire
yellow = sapphire
Sapphire covers the largest number of colors. Gemologists and gem dealers will often deceivingly use the term "oriental" in referring to non-blue colored sapphires. For example, "oriental amethyst" is purple corundum, "oriental topaz" is yellow corundum, "oriental emerald" is green corundum, etc. Black-colored corundum is often called emery. Corundum-rich rocks are also called emery, or corundite (www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/albums/72157646922258716).
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Photo gallery of corundum and sapphire:
www.mindat.org/gallery.php?min=1136
and
These Historical Figures by George Stuart are in the permanent collection of the Ventura County Museum in Ventura, California. The quarter scale diamond replicas in the historical figures accessories as well as the full size cubic zirconia replicas exhibited with the figures were crafted by gemologist Scott Sucher of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Hope Diamond
•Catalog Number: NMNH G3551-00
•Locality: India
•Weight: 45.52 ct
Gift of Harry Winston, Inc in 1958.
Over 100 million visitors have experienced the beauty of the Hope Diamond since Harry Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. Learn more about this remarkable gem using the tiles below.
Timeline
The French Kings: 1668-1792
1668-1669: Tavernier’s Diamond
King Louis XIV was fond of beautiful and rare gems, especially diamonds. In December of 1668, the explorer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier met with the king to share a collection of diamonds collected on his recently completed trip to India. In February of 1669, King Louis XIV purchased the lot of diamonds, including a large blue diamond weighing 112 3⁄16 old French carats (approximately 115 modern metric carats) for 220,000 livres (Bapst 1889). In recognition of this transaction, the king honored Tavernier with the rank of nobleman (Morel 1988).
It is commonly assumed that Tavernier acquired the diamond on his last journey to India (1664-1668) and that it came from the Kollur Mine of the Golconda region. However, evidence for both source and timing is circumstantial, as Tavernier makes no mention of the acquisition of the diamond in the published accounts of his journeys. The Kollur Mine is considered a likely source because it was known for producing large and colored diamonds (Post and Farges 2014), but there were several diamond mines throughout India during the time of Tavernier’s voyages, and the diamond could have come from any one of them. The diamond must at least have originated in India, as India was the only commercial source of diamonds in Tavernier’s time.
1669-1672: Creating the French Blue
King Louis XIV ordered one of his court jewelers, Jean Pittan the Younger, to supervise the recutting of the 115-carat blue diamond. The king likely ordered the stone recut because of differences between Indian and European tastes in diamonds: Indian gems were cut to retain size and weight, while Europeans prized luster, symmetry and brilliance. It is not known who actually cut the diamond, but the job took about two years to complete. The result was an approximately 69-carat heart-shaped diamond referred to as “the great violet diamond of His Majesty” in the historic royal archives. At that time, “violet” meant a shade of blue. Today, the diamond is most commonly known as the “French Blue” (Post and Farges 2014).
An inventory of the French Crown Jewels from 1691 reveals that the French Blue was “set into gold and mounted on a stick.” In 2012, a computer simulation revealed that eight central facets on the pavilion of the French Blue were cut so as to be visible when one looked through the face of the gem (Farges et al. 2012). When the stone was set in gold, the effect would be the appearance of a gold sun in the center of the blue diamond. Post and Farges (2014) proposed that the stone was cut this way to show the colors of the French monarchy, blue and gold, symbolizing the divine standing and power of King Louis XIV, the Sun King. The diamond was not worn as a piece of jewelry or kept with the French Crown Jewels, but rather was stored in the King’s cabinet of curiosities at Versailles, where he could show it to special guests.
1749: The Order of the Golden Fleece
Louis XIV’s great-grandson, Louis XV, inherited the royal jewels when he ascended to the throne. Around 1749, King Louis XV tasked the Parisian jeweler Pierre-André Jacqumin with creating an emblem of knighthood of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The finished emblem featured a number of spectacular gems, including the French Blue Diamond, the 107-carat Côte de Bretagne spinel (carved into the shape of a dragon and originally thought to be a ruby), and several other diamonds. It was rarely worn, functioning instead as a symbol of the king’s power (Post and Farges 2014).
1791: The Capture of Louis XVI
Amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempted to escape France, but were apprehended and returned to Paris. The French Crown Jewels, including the French Blue Diamond in the Order of the Golden Fleece, were turned over to the revolutionary government and moved to the Garde-Meuble, the Royal Storehouse, where they were put on view for the public once a week until 1792. On visiting days, the doors of the armoires would be opened and a selection of mounted and unmounted jewels could be viewed in special display cases.
1792: The Theft of the French Crown Jewels
On the night of September 11th, 1792, a group of thieves climbed through the first-floor windows of the Garde-Meuble into the room where the French Crown Jewels were stored and escaped with some of the jewels. At the time, no one in the storehouse even realized that a theft had taken place: The seal on the door to the room had not been broken, and no guards were stationed inside of the room. The thieves returned over the following nights to steal more of the jewels. By the evening of September 17th, the group of thieves had grown to about fifty. Acting loudly and carelessly, they attracted the attention of the patrol, putting an end to one of the most curious thefts in history (Morel 1988).
By then, the Order of the Golden Fleece was gone. The French Blue Diamond has not been seen since.
From Europe to America: 1812-1958
1812: A Blue Diamond Appears in London
It is now clear that the French Blue resurfaced in London nearly 20 years later, although no one seems to have recognized it at the time. It had by then been recut to a smaller (though still spectacular) gem, which we know today as the Hope Diamond.
The first reference to this diamond is a sketch and description made in 1812 by the London jeweler John Francillon:
The above drawing is the exact size and shape of a very curious superfine deep blue Diamond. Brilliant cut, and equal to a fine deep blue Sapphire. It is beauty full and all perfection without specks or flaws, and the color even and perfect all over the Diamond. I traced it round the diamond with a pencil by leave of Mr. Daniel Eliason and it is as finely cut as I have ever seen in a Diamond. The color of the Drawing is as near the color of the Diamond as possible.
Francillon does not mention where the diamond came from or who had cut it, nor does he connect it to the French Blue.
Intriguingly, the Francillon Memo is dated just two days after the twenty-year statute of limitations for crimes committed during the French Revolution had passed. The diamond may have resurfaced at this time because the possibility of prosecution and of France reclaiming the diamond was eliminated, making the owner comfortable enough to share the diamond with others (Winters and White 1991).
1813-1823: Mr. Eliason’s Diamond
Several other British naturalists and gem experts made note of a large blue diamond in London in the years following Francillon’s memo. In the 1813 and 1815 editions of his book, A Treatise on Diamonds and Precious Stones, mineralogist and gem connoisseur John Mawe writes that “there is at this time a superlatively fine blue diamond, of above 44 carats, in possession of an individual in London, which may be considered as matchless, and of course of arbitrary value.” Similarly, James Sowerby, a naturalist known for his illustrations of minerals and other objects, wrote that “Daniel Eliason, Esq. has in London, a nearly perfect blue Brilliant, of 44½ carats, that is superior to any other coloured diamond known” (Sowerby 1817).
By 1823, the diamond was no longer in Eliason’s possession. Mawe returned to the subject of the blue diamond in the 1823 edition of his book, writing that:
“A superlatively fine blue diamond weighing 44 carats and valued at £30,000, formerly the property of Mr. Eliason, an eminent diamond merchant, is now said to be in the possession of our most gracious sovereign… The unrivaled gem is of a deep sapphire blue, and from its rarity and color, might have been estimated at a higher sum. It has found its most worthy destination in passing into the possession of a monarch, whose refined taste has ever been conspicuous in the highest degree” (Mawe 1823)
According to Mawe, then, Eliason had parted with the diamond and it had come into the possession of George IV, the King of England. However, no evidence linking the Hope Diamond to the king has been found in the British royal archives, and we do not know whether George IV ever possessed it as either owner or borrower (Post and Farges 2014).
1839: Henry Philip Hope’s Gem Collection
Henry Philip Hope (1774-1839) was a wealthy British banker with an affinity for fine art and precious gems. An 1839 catalogue of his gem collection mentions a large blue diamond weighing 45.5 carats. The diamond would take his name, becoming known as “Hope’s Diamond” or the “Hope Diamond.” The catalogue describes the diamond as “a most magnificent and rare brilliant, of a deep sapphire blue, of the greatest purity, and most beautifully cut” (Hertz 1839). It was set in a medallion with smaller, rose-cut, colorless diamonds surrounding it and a pearl that dropped from the bottom of the medallion as a pendant. Unfortunately, Hope does not record when or where he acquired the diamond in his 1839 catalogue.
Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, leaving his possessions to his three nephews: Henry Thomas, Adrian, and Alexander. In his will, Henry Philip Hope divided his money and property amongst the brothers, but did not leave instructions for the division of his gem collection. Given the immense value of his collection, the Hope brothers argued for years over who would inherit it. In 1849, after ten years of dispute, the brothers reached an agreement: the property went to Adrian, the Hope Pearl and around 700 precious gemstones went to Alexander, and the Hope Diamond and seven other gems went to Henry Thomas (Kurin 2006).
1851: The Great London Exhibition
Henry Thomas Hope loaned the Hope Diamond for display at the Crystal Palace during the Great London Exhibition. According to a catalogue from the exhibition, 28 diamonds from the Henry Philip Hope Collection were exhibited. This suggests that the brother of Henry Thomas, Alexander, must have contributed diamonds to the display effort since Henry Thomas had only inherited eight gems from his uncle and Alexander had inherited the rest (Kurin 2006).
1858: The French Blue Connection
Today, we are certain that the Hope Diamond is the recut French Blue. However, it took 46 years after Francillon described the modern Hope for someone to connect the two diamonds. The French gemologist Charles Barbot was first, speculating in his 1858 book, Traité Complet de Pierres Précieuses, that the Hope Diamond was cut from the French Blue (Post and Farges 2014).
Later authors continued in this track. In 1870, Charles W. King wrote about a likely connection between the two blue diamonds in his book, The Natural History of the Precious Stones and of the Precious Metals. On the subject of “Hope’s Blue Diamond” King writes “suspected to be that of the French Regalia (stolen in 1792), and then weighing 67 car., and afterwards re-cut as a brilliant to its present weight of 44½ carat.”
In 1882, Edwin Streeter wrote about the diamond’s provenance in his book, The Great Diamonds of the World: Their History and Romance:
The disappearance of Tavernier’s rough blue from the French regalia, followed by the unexplained appearance of a cut gem of precisely the same delicate blue tint, and answering in size to the original after due allowance made for loss in cutting, leaves little or no room for doubting the identity of the two stones… It thus appears that the rough un-cut Tavernier, the French “Blue,” lost in 1792, and the “Hope,” are one and the same stone. (Streeter 1882, p. 214).
1887: The Extravagant Life of Lord Francis Hope
Henry Thomas Hope left his possessions, including the Hope Diamond, to his wife Anne Adéle Hope when he passed away in 1862. Anne, in turn, decided to leave the family treasures not to her daughter, Henrietta (whose husband was careless with money and often on the verge of bankruptcy) but to her grandson, Francis Hope. In her 1876 will, Anne named Francis as heir to the family treasures, stipulating that the estates and heirlooms were to be used during his lifetime and then passed on to another Hope descendant. Anne passed away in 1884, and Francis Hope claimed his inheritance when he turned 21, three years later (Kurin 2006).
Lord Francis Hope was less prudent than his grandmother might have hoped. He lived extravagantly, quickly spending his inheritance on traveling, entertainment, and gambling and sinking into tremendous debt. In 1892, he met a showgirl in New York City named May Yohé, a glamorous and charming actress from Pennsylvania. Hope and Yohé married in 1894 and continued to live well beyond their means. To avoid bankruptcy, Hope appealed to his relatives for permission to sell a portion of the family art collection, claiming that he could no longer afford to care for the paintings. After years of litigation, the family finally agreed to allow Hope to sell a selection of the paintings, but the sale was not enough to save him from financial crisis. In 1901, after more litigation with his family, Lord Francis offered the Hope Diamond for sale (Patch 1999).
1901-1907: Crossing the Atlantic
In 1901, Lord Francis Hope sold the Hope Diamond to London diamond merchant Adolf Weil, who sold the diamond to Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. of New York shortly thereafter. Simon Frankel sailed to London from New York to finalize the purchase. One source reported that Frankel paid $250,000 (~6.7 million 2014 dollars) for the diamond (Patch 1999).
Frankel brought the Hope Diamond back to New York to try to sell it in America, but received no reasonable offers. By 1907, the market for diamonds had sharply declined due to a slow economy, and Frankel’s company faced the possibility of bankruptcy (Kurin 2006). The Hope Diamond sat locked away in a New York safe deposit box while Frankel tried to find a buyer.
1908-1909: Selim Habib and Rumors of a Curse
Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. finally found a buyer for the Hope Diamond in 1908: Selim Habib, a Turkish diamond collector and merchant who purchased the Hope Diamond for a reported $200,000 (~5 million 2014 dollars). According to the New York Times, Selim Habib soon had financial troubles, and in 1909, he sold his gem collection, including the Hope Diamond (Kurin, 2006). His financial difficulties and a later, incorrect report of his death at sea contributed to the growing myth of a curse on the Hope Diamond.
Habib’s collection was put up for auction at the Hotel Drouot in Paris, France on June 24, 1909. Jeweler and gem expert Louis Aucoc oversaw the auction, withdrawing the Hope Diamond from the sale before selling it to jeweler C. N. Rosenau for 400,000 francs (Kurin 2006).
1910: Cartier acquired the Hope Diamond
Cartier, a French jewelry house, purchased the Hope Diamond from jeweler C.N. Rosenau in 1910. The Hope Diamond arrived in the U.S. on November 23, 1910, where it was valued at $110,000 for customs plus the $10,000 duty for an unmounted gem (Patch 1999).
Pierre Cartier took on the responsibility of selling the Hope Diamond. Pierre was a talented salesman: Charming, smooth-talking, and sophisticated, he was experienced in the art of selling to wealthy customers, Americans in particular, having worked at Cartier’s New York office.
By this time, the art of developing colorful narratives for famous gems was already well established. Intriguing histories helped with gem sales, and in turn, gave the purchaser an interesting tale to tell admirers at various events. Cartier thus began to fabricate a fanciful story around the Hope Diamond that included a curse, which he would pitch to potential buyers (Kurin 2006).
1912: The McLeans buy the Hope Diamond
In 1912, Pierre Cartier sold the Hope Diamond to an American couple, Ned and Evalyn Walsh McLean. The sale was the result of two years of work.
Pierre identified the McLeans as potential buyers shortly after Cartier purchased the Hope Diamond. Both Evalyn and Ned were heirs to American fortunes, Evalyn’s from mining and Ned’s from newspapers. They were previous, big-spending clients of Cartier, having purchased the 94.8-carat Star of the East Diamond from Cartier in 1908 while they were on their honeymoon. Pierre arranged to meet with them in 1910 while they were on vacation in Paris. He presented his embellished tale of the Hope Diamond’s extraordinary provenance to the McLeans, including the curse that brought bad luck to all who owned it. Evalyn was fascinated with the story and told Pierre that she believed objects that brought bad luck to others would bring good luck to her. Despite her interest, she initially declined to purchase the blue diamond because she did not like its setting (McLean 1936).
Pierre, a persistent man, did not let an old-fashioned setting prevent him from securing the sale. He took the Hope Diamond to New York, where he had it reset into a contemporary mounting. In the new mounting (essentially the same mounting it is in today), the Hope was framed by 16 colorless diamonds and could be worn as part of a head ornament or a diamond necklace. Pierre returned to Washington and left the newly set Hope with Evalyn and Ned over a weekend.
Pierre’s strategy was successful—Evalyn adored the Hope Diamond, and several months later agreed to purchase it from Cartier, settling on a price of $180,000 (Patch 1999) plus the return of an emerald and pearl pendant with diamond necklace that she no longer wanted (McLean 1936). The Hope Diamond became Evalyn Walsh McLean’s signature in the high society of Washington, D.C. She wore it frequently, layered with her other important gems and jewelry, to events and the lavish parties she hosted. Evalyn would even let her Great Dane, Mike, wear the Hope Diamond on his collar.
1947-1949: Evalyn Walsh McLean Passes Away
Evalyn Walsh McLean died from pneumonia on April 26, 1947. She dictated in her will that all of her jewelry be held in trust until her youngest grandchild turned twenty-five, at which point her jewels were to be divided equally by all of her grandchildren. Two years after her death, however, the court ordered the sale of her jewelry collection to pay off debts and claims against her estate (Patch 1999). The Hope Diamond, the Star of the East Diamond, and the rest of her jewelry collection were purchased by jeweler Harry Winston of New York.
1949-1958: Winston and the Court of Jewels
In 1949, Harry Winston purchased the Hope Diamond along with the rest of the Evalyn Walsh McLean’s jewelry collection. Winston incoporated McLean’s jewelry into the Court of Jewels, a traveling exhibition of gems supplemented by a jewelry fashion show. Large and famous diamonds, including the Hope Diamond, the Star of the East Diamond, and the 127-carat Portuguese Diamond (now also part of the Smithsonian’s collection), were featured as part of the show. The exhibit travelled throughout America from 1949 to 1953 to teach the public about precious gems and raise money for civic and charitable organizations (Harry Winston, Inc.). Harry Winston once stated: “I want the public to know more about precious gems. With so much expensive junk jewelry around these days, people forget that a good diamond, ruby, or emerald, however small, is a possession to be prized for generations” (Tupper and Tupper 1947).
At the Smithsonian: 1958-Present
1958: The Hope Diamond comes to the Smithsonian
In 1958, Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution. On November 10th, the Hope arrived at the Smithsonian in a plain brown package shipped by registered mail (and insured for a sum of one million dollars). Mrs. Harry Winston presented the Hope Diamond to Dr. Leonard Carmichael, Secretary of the Smithsonian, and Dr. George S. Switzer, Curator of Mineralogy. The Hope Diamond was exhibited in the Gem Hall at the National Museum of Natural History and almost immediately became its premier attraction.
1962: A Visit to France
With the encouragement of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the Hope Diamond was loaned for a month to the Louvre Museum for the exhibition “Ten Centuries of French Jewels.” It was displayed with two famous diamonds, the Regent (a 140.50-carat brilliant cushion cut diamond) and the Sancy (a pale yellow 55.23-carat pear-shaped diamond). Also on display was the Côte de Bretagne, a red spinel carved in the shape of a dragon that, along with the French Blue Diamond, had been part of Louis XV’s elaborate emblem of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This exhibition marked the reunion of these two gems after 170 years. In return, the Louvre’s masterpiece, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, was loaned to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from January 8 to February 3, 1963.
1965: At the Rand Easter Show in South Africa
The Hope Diamond was loaned to DeBeers and traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa for the Rand Easter Show, one of the largest consumer exhibitions in the world. The Hope Diamond was the main attraction in the jewel box in the Diamond Pavilion. Surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, it was exhibited on a finely woven spider’s web supported by the bare branches of a rose bush and illuminated from above.
1982: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In November 1982, Ronald Winston, son of Harry Winston, hosted 1,200 guests in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Engelhard Court. (Kurin 2006) For the glittering gala, the Hope Diamond was reunited with the Star of the East (a 94.80-carat pear-shaped diamond previously owned by Evalyn Walsh McLean) and the Idol’s Eye (a 70.21-carat rounded pear-shape diamond exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in 1965).
1997: The New Harry Winston Gallery
The Hope Diamond was put on display in the Harry Winston Gallery of the newly completed Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals in the National Museum of Natural History. The diamond is mounted on a rotating pedestal so that it can be viewed from all four sides of the vault.
2009-2010: Celebrating 50 years at the Smithsonian
In September 2009, the Hope Diamond was removed from its setting and exhibited unmounted for the first time ever. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian, an online contest was used to select a commemorative necklace from one of three designs submitted by Harry Winston, Inc. The winning entry, “Embracing Hope”, was designed by Maurice Galli. This modern design consisted of three-dimensional ribbons set with baguette-cut diamonds wrapping the Hope Diamond in an exquisite embrace. The Hope Diamond was set in the Embracing Hope necklace and displayed for over a year before being returned to its original Cartier mounting.
2017: The Hope Diamond Today
Today, the Hope Diamond remains one of the most popular objects at the Smithsonian, attracting millions of visitors every year. Even now, the Hope retains much of its mystery, and Smithsonain scientists continue to study it to better understand its eventful history and rare beauty.
Grading the Hope
For many years, the weight of the Hope Diamond was not precisely known, with reports of its weight ranging from 44 carats to 45.5 carats. On November 13, 1975, the Hope Diamond was removed from its setting and found to weigh 45.52 carats.
Gemologists from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) visited the Smithsonian in 1988 to grade the Hope Diamond. They observed that the gem showed evidence of wear, that it had a remarkably strong phosphorescence, and that its clarity was slightly affected by a whitish graining that is common to blue diamonds. They described its color as fancy dark grayish-blue and its clarity as VS1 (Crowningshield 1989).
In 1996, the Hope Diamond necklace was sent to Harry Winston, Inc. for cleaning and minor restoration work. The diamond was removed from its setting and re-examined by the GIA. In this report, the Hope’s color was described as a a natural fancy deep grayish-blue (reflecting a change in GIA’s nomenclature for grading, not a change in the assessment of the diamond).
How much is the Hope Diamond worth?
We at the Smithsonian like to say that the Hope Diamond is priceless. Its size, color, and eventful history, as well as its long tenure at the heart of the Smithsonian’s gem collection, make it a true American treasure. In any case, it’s not for sale!
What can we say about the value of a gem like the Hope, if we’re not going to commit to a specific number? A large part of a gem’s value comes from its physical properties: color, clarity, cut, and carat weight. But other, less tangible factors can also increase the value of a gem. For example, as Pierre Cartier recognized a hundred years ago, an eventful, well-documented history is important, as are the tastes and means of an individual buyer. The price of an individual stone reflects the confluence of these and other factors.
Blue diamonds like the Hope are very rare, and the money being spent to purchase them is enormous. Several large blue diamonds have fetched tens of millions of dollars at auction in recent years:
•The 9.75 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue Zoe sold at Sotheby’s in 2014 for $32.6 million
•The 13.22 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue Winston Blue sold at Christie’s in 2014 for $24.2 million
•The 35.56 carat, Fancy Deep Grayish Blue Wittelsbach-Graff sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $24.3 million
Less well-documented are private sales, where famous stones such as the Heart of Eternity and the Wittelsbach-Graff may have fetched even higher prices.
Computer Modeling
A computer modeling study of the Tavernier, French Blue and Hope diamonds was conducted. The results support the long-held theory that the diamonds are in fact the same stone, concluding that the Hope Diamond is likely the only surviving piece of the diamond originally sold to King Louis XIV–the rest having been ground away during the various recuttings. This research, conducted by Jeffrey Post, Smithsonian curator of the National Gem Collection, Steven Attaway, engineer and gem cutter, and Scott Sucher and Nancy Attaway, gem cutting experts, was featured on the Discovery Channel. The film, “Unsolved History: Hope Diamond,” premiered Feb 10, 2005.
In 2007, a lead cast of the French Blue diamond was discovered in the mineral collection of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, permitting additional refinements to the modeling study.
Boron in Blue Diamonds
The blue color in the Hope Diamond and others like it is caused by trace amounts of boron. The Hope Diamond was tested to measure its chemical composition and determine the concentration of boron. This study used various spectroscopic methods and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy to analyze for boron in natural type IIb blue diamonds, including the Hope Diamond and the Blue Heart Diamond (also a part of the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection). The study found that, on average, the Hope Diamond contains about 0.6 parts per million boron.
Phosphoresence of the Hope Diamond
Curator Dr. Jeffrey Post led a team from the Smithsonian and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to investigate the intense, red-orange phosphorescence exhibited by the Hope Diamond after exposure to ultra-violet light. They discovered that all type IIB blue diamonds exhibit similar phosphorescence behaviors and that the specific phosphorescence spectral properties might be unique to each individual blue diamond, enabling the researchers to essentially “fingerprint” each stone.
The Hope Diamond
•Catalog Number: NMNH G3551-00
•Locality: India
•Weight: 45.52 ct
Gift of Harry Winston, Inc in 1958.
Over 100 million visitors have experienced the beauty of the Hope Diamond since Harry Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. Learn more about this remarkable gem using the tiles below.
Timeline
The French Kings: 1668-1792
1668-1669: Tavernier’s Diamond
King Louis XIV was fond of beautiful and rare gems, especially diamonds. In December of 1668, the explorer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier met with the king to share a collection of diamonds collected on his recently completed trip to India. In February of 1669, King Louis XIV purchased the lot of diamonds, including a large blue diamond weighing 112 3⁄16 old French carats (approximately 115 modern metric carats) for 220,000 livres (Bapst 1889). In recognition of this transaction, the king honored Tavernier with the rank of nobleman (Morel 1988).
It is commonly assumed that Tavernier acquired the diamond on his last journey to India (1664-1668) and that it came from the Kollur Mine of the Golconda region. However, evidence for both source and timing is circumstantial, as Tavernier makes no mention of the acquisition of the diamond in the published accounts of his journeys. The Kollur Mine is considered a likely source because it was known for producing large and colored diamonds (Post and Farges 2014), but there were several diamond mines throughout India during the time of Tavernier’s voyages, and the diamond could have come from any one of them. The diamond must at least have originated in India, as India was the only commercial source of diamonds in Tavernier’s time.
1669-1672: Creating the French Blue
King Louis XIV ordered one of his court jewelers, Jean Pittan the Younger, to supervise the recutting of the 115-carat blue diamond. The king likely ordered the stone recut because of differences between Indian and European tastes in diamonds: Indian gems were cut to retain size and weight, while Europeans prized luster, symmetry and brilliance. It is not known who actually cut the diamond, but the job took about two years to complete. The result was an approximately 69-carat heart-shaped diamond referred to as “the great violet diamond of His Majesty” in the historic royal archives. At that time, “violet” meant a shade of blue. Today, the diamond is most commonly known as the “French Blue” (Post and Farges 2014).
An inventory of the French Crown Jewels from 1691 reveals that the French Blue was “set into gold and mounted on a stick.” In 2012, a computer simulation revealed that eight central facets on the pavilion of the French Blue were cut so as to be visible when one looked through the face of the gem (Farges et al. 2012). When the stone was set in gold, the effect would be the appearance of a gold sun in the center of the blue diamond. Post and Farges (2014) proposed that the stone was cut this way to show the colors of the French monarchy, blue and gold, symbolizing the divine standing and power of King Louis XIV, the Sun King. The diamond was not worn as a piece of jewelry or kept with the French Crown Jewels, but rather was stored in the King’s cabinet of curiosities at Versailles, where he could show it to special guests.
1749: The Order of the Golden Fleece
Louis XIV’s great-grandson, Louis XV, inherited the royal jewels when he ascended to the throne. Around 1749, King Louis XV tasked the Parisian jeweler Pierre-André Jacqumin with creating an emblem of knighthood of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The finished emblem featured a number of spectacular gems, including the French Blue Diamond, the 107-carat Côte de Bretagne spinel (carved into the shape of a dragon and originally thought to be a ruby), and several other diamonds. It was rarely worn, functioning instead as a symbol of the king’s power (Post and Farges 2014).
1791: The Capture of Louis XVI
Amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempted to escape France, but were apprehended and returned to Paris. The French Crown Jewels, including the French Blue Diamond in the Order of the Golden Fleece, were turned over to the revolutionary government and moved to the Garde-Meuble, the Royal Storehouse, where they were put on view for the public once a week until 1792. On visiting days, the doors of the armoires would be opened and a selection of mounted and unmounted jewels could be viewed in special display cases.
1792: The Theft of the French Crown Jewels
On the night of September 11th, 1792, a group of thieves climbed through the first-floor windows of the Garde-Meuble into the room where the French Crown Jewels were stored and escaped with some of the jewels. At the time, no one in the storehouse even realized that a theft had taken place: The seal on the door to the room had not been broken, and no guards were stationed inside of the room. The thieves returned over the following nights to steal more of the jewels. By the evening of September 17th, the group of thieves had grown to about fifty. Acting loudly and carelessly, they attracted the attention of the patrol, putting an end to one of the most curious thefts in history (Morel 1988).
By then, the Order of the Golden Fleece was gone. The French Blue Diamond has not been seen since.
From Europe to America: 1812-1958
1812: A Blue Diamond Appears in London
It is now clear that the French Blue resurfaced in London nearly 20 years later, although no one seems to have recognized it at the time. It had by then been recut to a smaller (though still spectacular) gem, which we know today as the Hope Diamond.
The first reference to this diamond is a sketch and description made in 1812 by the London jeweler John Francillon:
The above drawing is the exact size and shape of a very curious superfine deep blue Diamond. Brilliant cut, and equal to a fine deep blue Sapphire. It is beauty full and all perfection without specks or flaws, and the color even and perfect all over the Diamond. I traced it round the diamond with a pencil by leave of Mr. Daniel Eliason and it is as finely cut as I have ever seen in a Diamond. The color of the Drawing is as near the color of the Diamond as possible.
Francillon does not mention where the diamond came from or who had cut it, nor does he connect it to the French Blue.
Intriguingly, the Francillon Memo is dated just two days after the twenty-year statute of limitations for crimes committed during the French Revolution had passed. The diamond may have resurfaced at this time because the possibility of prosecution and of France reclaiming the diamond was eliminated, making the owner comfortable enough to share the diamond with others (Winters and White 1991).
1813-1823: Mr. Eliason’s Diamond
Several other British naturalists and gem experts made note of a large blue diamond in London in the years following Francillon’s memo. In the 1813 and 1815 editions of his book, A Treatise on Diamonds and Precious Stones, mineralogist and gem connoisseur John Mawe writes that “there is at this time a superlatively fine blue diamond, of above 44 carats, in possession of an individual in London, which may be considered as matchless, and of course of arbitrary value.” Similarly, James Sowerby, a naturalist known for his illustrations of minerals and other objects, wrote that “Daniel Eliason, Esq. has in London, a nearly perfect blue Brilliant, of 44½ carats, that is superior to any other coloured diamond known” (Sowerby 1817).
By 1823, the diamond was no longer in Eliason’s possession. Mawe returned to the subject of the blue diamond in the 1823 edition of his book, writing that:
“A superlatively fine blue diamond weighing 44 carats and valued at £30,000, formerly the property of Mr. Eliason, an eminent diamond merchant, is now said to be in the possession of our most gracious sovereign… The unrivaled gem is of a deep sapphire blue, and from its rarity and color, might have been estimated at a higher sum. It has found its most worthy destination in passing into the possession of a monarch, whose refined taste has ever been conspicuous in the highest degree” (Mawe 1823)
According to Mawe, then, Eliason had parted with the diamond and it had come into the possession of George IV, the King of England. However, no evidence linking the Hope Diamond to the king has been found in the British royal archives, and we do not know whether George IV ever possessed it as either owner or borrower (Post and Farges 2014).
1839: Henry Philip Hope’s Gem Collection
Henry Philip Hope (1774-1839) was a wealthy British banker with an affinity for fine art and precious gems. An 1839 catalogue of his gem collection mentions a large blue diamond weighing 45.5 carats. The diamond would take his name, becoming known as “Hope’s Diamond” or the “Hope Diamond.” The catalogue describes the diamond as “a most magnificent and rare brilliant, of a deep sapphire blue, of the greatest purity, and most beautifully cut” (Hertz 1839). It was set in a medallion with smaller, rose-cut, colorless diamonds surrounding it and a pearl that dropped from the bottom of the medallion as a pendant. Unfortunately, Hope does not record when or where he acquired the diamond in his 1839 catalogue.
Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, leaving his possessions to his three nephews: Henry Thomas, Adrian, and Alexander. In his will, Henry Philip Hope divided his money and property amongst the brothers, but did not leave instructions for the division of his gem collection. Given the immense value of his collection, the Hope brothers argued for years over who would inherit it. In 1849, after ten years of dispute, the brothers reached an agreement: the property went to Adrian, the Hope Pearl and around 700 precious gemstones went to Alexander, and the Hope Diamond and seven other gems went to Henry Thomas (Kurin 2006).
1851: The Great London Exhibition
Henry Thomas Hope loaned the Hope Diamond for display at the Crystal Palace during the Great London Exhibition. According to a catalogue from the exhibition, 28 diamonds from the Henry Philip Hope Collection were exhibited. This suggests that the brother of Henry Thomas, Alexander, must have contributed diamonds to the display effort since Henry Thomas had only inherited eight gems from his uncle and Alexander had inherited the rest (Kurin 2006).
1858: The French Blue Connection
Today, we are certain that the Hope Diamond is the recut French Blue. However, it took 46 years after Francillon described the modern Hope for someone to connect the two diamonds. The French gemologist Charles Barbot was first, speculating in his 1858 book, Traité Complet de Pierres Précieuses, that the Hope Diamond was cut from the French Blue (Post and Farges 2014).
Later authors continued in this track. In 1870, Charles W. King wrote about a likely connection between the two blue diamonds in his book, The Natural History of the Precious Stones and of the Precious Metals. On the subject of “Hope’s Blue Diamond” King writes “suspected to be that of the French Regalia (stolen in 1792), and then weighing 67 car., and afterwards re-cut as a brilliant to its present weight of 44½ carat.”
In 1882, Edwin Streeter wrote about the diamond’s provenance in his book, The Great Diamonds of the World: Their History and Romance:
The disappearance of Tavernier’s rough blue from the French regalia, followed by the unexplained appearance of a cut gem of precisely the same delicate blue tint, and answering in size to the original after due allowance made for loss in cutting, leaves little or no room for doubting the identity of the two stones… It thus appears that the rough un-cut Tavernier, the French “Blue,” lost in 1792, and the “Hope,” are one and the same stone. (Streeter 1882, p. 214).
1887: The Extravagant Life of Lord Francis Hope
Henry Thomas Hope left his possessions, including the Hope Diamond, to his wife Anne Adéle Hope when he passed away in 1862. Anne, in turn, decided to leave the family treasures not to her daughter, Henrietta (whose husband was careless with money and often on the verge of bankruptcy) but to her grandson, Francis Hope. In her 1876 will, Anne named Francis as heir to the family treasures, stipulating that the estates and heirlooms were to be used during his lifetime and then passed on to another Hope descendant. Anne passed away in 1884, and Francis Hope claimed his inheritance when he turned 21, three years later (Kurin 2006).
Lord Francis Hope was less prudent than his grandmother might have hoped. He lived extravagantly, quickly spending his inheritance on traveling, entertainment, and gambling and sinking into tremendous debt. In 1892, he met a showgirl in New York City named May Yohé, a glamorous and charming actress from Pennsylvania. Hope and Yohé married in 1894 and continued to live well beyond their means. To avoid bankruptcy, Hope appealed to his relatives for permission to sell a portion of the family art collection, claiming that he could no longer afford to care for the paintings. After years of litigation, the family finally agreed to allow Hope to sell a selection of the paintings, but the sale was not enough to save him from financial crisis. In 1901, after more litigation with his family, Lord Francis offered the Hope Diamond for sale (Patch 1999).
1901-1907: Crossing the Atlantic
In 1901, Lord Francis Hope sold the Hope Diamond to London diamond merchant Adolf Weil, who sold the diamond to Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. of New York shortly thereafter. Simon Frankel sailed to London from New York to finalize the purchase. One source reported that Frankel paid $250,000 (~6.7 million 2014 dollars) for the diamond (Patch 1999).
Frankel brought the Hope Diamond back to New York to try to sell it in America, but received no reasonable offers. By 1907, the market for diamonds had sharply declined due to a slow economy, and Frankel’s company faced the possibility of bankruptcy (Kurin 2006). The Hope Diamond sat locked away in a New York safe deposit box while Frankel tried to find a buyer.
1908-1909: Selim Habib and Rumors of a Curse
Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. finally found a buyer for the Hope Diamond in 1908: Selim Habib, a Turkish diamond collector and merchant who purchased the Hope Diamond for a reported $200,000 (~5 million 2014 dollars). According to the New York Times, Selim Habib soon had financial troubles, and in 1909, he sold his gem collection, including the Hope Diamond (Kurin, 2006). His financial difficulties and a later, incorrect report of his death at sea contributed to the growing myth of a curse on the Hope Diamond.
Habib’s collection was put up for auction at the Hotel Drouot in Paris, France on June 24, 1909. Jeweler and gem expert Louis Aucoc oversaw the auction, withdrawing the Hope Diamond from the sale before selling it to jeweler C. N. Rosenau for 400,000 francs (Kurin 2006).
1910: Cartier acquired the Hope Diamond
Cartier, a French jewelry house, purchased the Hope Diamond from jeweler C.N. Rosenau in 1910. The Hope Diamond arrived in the U.S. on November 23, 1910, where it was valued at $110,000 for customs plus the $10,000 duty for an unmounted gem (Patch 1999).
Pierre Cartier took on the responsibility of selling the Hope Diamond. Pierre was a talented salesman: Charming, smooth-talking, and sophisticated, he was experienced in the art of selling to wealthy customers, Americans in particular, having worked at Cartier’s New York office.
By this time, the art of developing colorful narratives for famous gems was already well established. Intriguing histories helped with gem sales, and in turn, gave the purchaser an interesting tale to tell admirers at various events. Cartier thus began to fabricate a fanciful story around the Hope Diamond that included a curse, which he would pitch to potential buyers (Kurin 2006).
1912: The McLeans buy the Hope Diamond
In 1912, Pierre Cartier sold the Hope Diamond to an American couple, Ned and Evalyn Walsh McLean. The sale was the result of two years of work.
Pierre identified the McLeans as potential buyers shortly after Cartier purchased the Hope Diamond. Both Evalyn and Ned were heirs to American fortunes, Evalyn’s from mining and Ned’s from newspapers. They were previous, big-spending clients of Cartier, having purchased the 94.8-carat Star of the East Diamond from Cartier in 1908 while they were on their honeymoon. Pierre arranged to meet with them in 1910 while they were on vacation in Paris. He presented his embellished tale of the Hope Diamond’s extraordinary provenance to the McLeans, including the curse that brought bad luck to all who owned it. Evalyn was fascinated with the story and told Pierre that she believed objects that brought bad luck to others would bring good luck to her. Despite her interest, she initially declined to purchase the blue diamond because she did not like its setting (McLean 1936).
Pierre, a persistent man, did not let an old-fashioned setting prevent him from securing the sale. He took the Hope Diamond to New York, where he had it reset into a contemporary mounting. In the new mounting (essentially the same mounting it is in today), the Hope was framed by 16 colorless diamonds and could be worn as part of a head ornament or a diamond necklace. Pierre returned to Washington and left the newly set Hope with Evalyn and Ned over a weekend.
Pierre’s strategy was successful—Evalyn adored the Hope Diamond, and several months later agreed to purchase it from Cartier, settling on a price of $180,000 (Patch 1999) plus the return of an emerald and pearl pendant with diamond necklace that she no longer wanted (McLean 1936). The Hope Diamond became Evalyn Walsh McLean’s signature in the high society of Washington, D.C. She wore it frequently, layered with her other important gems and jewelry, to events and the lavish parties she hosted. Evalyn would even let her Great Dane, Mike, wear the Hope Diamond on his collar.
1947-1949: Evalyn Walsh McLean Passes Away
Evalyn Walsh McLean died from pneumonia on April 26, 1947. She dictated in her will that all of her jewelry be held in trust until her youngest grandchild turned twenty-five, at which point her jewels were to be divided equally by all of her grandchildren. Two years after her death, however, the court ordered the sale of her jewelry collection to pay off debts and claims against her estate (Patch 1999). The Hope Diamond, the Star of the East Diamond, and the rest of her jewelry collection were purchased by jeweler Harry Winston of New York.
1949-1958: Winston and the Court of Jewels
In 1949, Harry Winston purchased the Hope Diamond along with the rest of the Evalyn Walsh McLean’s jewelry collection. Winston incoporated McLean’s jewelry into the Court of Jewels, a traveling exhibition of gems supplemented by a jewelry fashion show. Large and famous diamonds, including the Hope Diamond, the Star of the East Diamond, and the 127-carat Portuguese Diamond (now also part of the Smithsonian’s collection), were featured as part of the show. The exhibit travelled throughout America from 1949 to 1953 to teach the public about precious gems and raise money for civic and charitable organizations (Harry Winston, Inc.). Harry Winston once stated: “I want the public to know more about precious gems. With so much expensive junk jewelry around these days, people forget that a good diamond, ruby, or emerald, however small, is a possession to be prized for generations” (Tupper and Tupper 1947).
At the Smithsonian: 1958-Present
1958: The Hope Diamond comes to the Smithsonian
In 1958, Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution. On November 10th, the Hope arrived at the Smithsonian in a plain brown package shipped by registered mail (and insured for a sum of one million dollars). Mrs. Harry Winston presented the Hope Diamond to Dr. Leonard Carmichael, Secretary of the Smithsonian, and Dr. George S. Switzer, Curator of Mineralogy. The Hope Diamond was exhibited in the Gem Hall at the National Museum of Natural History and almost immediately became its premier attraction.
1962: A Visit to France
With the encouragement of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the Hope Diamond was loaned for a month to the Louvre Museum for the exhibition “Ten Centuries of French Jewels.” It was displayed with two famous diamonds, the Regent (a 140.50-carat brilliant cushion cut diamond) and the Sancy (a pale yellow 55.23-carat pear-shaped diamond). Also on display was the Côte de Bretagne, a red spinel carved in the shape of a dragon that, along with the French Blue Diamond, had been part of Louis XV’s elaborate emblem of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This exhibition marked the reunion of these two gems after 170 years. In return, the Louvre’s masterpiece, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, was loaned to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from January 8 to February 3, 1963.
1965: At the Rand Easter Show in South Africa
The Hope Diamond was loaned to DeBeers and traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa for the Rand Easter Show, one of the largest consumer exhibitions in the world. The Hope Diamond was the main attraction in the jewel box in the Diamond Pavilion. Surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, it was exhibited on a finely woven spider’s web supported by the bare branches of a rose bush and illuminated from above.
1982: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In November 1982, Ronald Winston, son of Harry Winston, hosted 1,200 guests in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Engelhard Court. (Kurin 2006) For the glittering gala, the Hope Diamond was reunited with the Star of the East (a 94.80-carat pear-shaped diamond previously owned by Evalyn Walsh McLean) and the Idol’s Eye (a 70.21-carat rounded pear-shape diamond exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in 1965).
1997: The New Harry Winston Gallery
The Hope Diamond was put on display in the Harry Winston Gallery of the newly completed Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals in the National Museum of Natural History. The diamond is mounted on a rotating pedestal so that it can be viewed from all four sides of the vault.
2009-2010: Celebrating 50 years at the Smithsonian
In September 2009, the Hope Diamond was removed from its setting and exhibited unmounted for the first time ever. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian, an online contest was used to select a commemorative necklace from one of three designs submitted by Harry Winston, Inc. The winning entry, “Embracing Hope”, was designed by Maurice Galli. This modern design consisted of three-dimensional ribbons set with baguette-cut diamonds wrapping the Hope Diamond in an exquisite embrace. The Hope Diamond was set in the Embracing Hope necklace and displayed for over a year before being returned to its original Cartier mounting.
2017: The Hope Diamond Today
Today, the Hope Diamond remains one of the most popular objects at the Smithsonian, attracting millions of visitors every year. Even now, the Hope retains much of its mystery, and Smithsonain scientists continue to study it to better understand its eventful history and rare beauty.
Grading the Hope
For many years, the weight of the Hope Diamond was not precisely known, with reports of its weight ranging from 44 carats to 45.5 carats. On November 13, 1975, the Hope Diamond was removed from its setting and found to weigh 45.52 carats.
Gemologists from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) visited the Smithsonian in 1988 to grade the Hope Diamond. They observed that the gem showed evidence of wear, that it had a remarkably strong phosphorescence, and that its clarity was slightly affected by a whitish graining that is common to blue diamonds. They described its color as fancy dark grayish-blue and its clarity as VS1 (Crowningshield 1989).
In 1996, the Hope Diamond necklace was sent to Harry Winston, Inc. for cleaning and minor restoration work. The diamond was removed from its setting and re-examined by the GIA. In this report, the Hope’s color was described as a a natural fancy deep grayish-blue (reflecting a change in GIA’s nomenclature for grading, not a change in the assessment of the diamond).
How much is the Hope Diamond worth?
We at the Smithsonian like to say that the Hope Diamond is priceless. Its size, color, and eventful history, as well as its long tenure at the heart of the Smithsonian’s gem collection, make it a true American treasure. In any case, it’s not for sale!
What can we say about the value of a gem like the Hope, if we’re not going to commit to a specific number? A large part of a gem’s value comes from its physical properties: color, clarity, cut, and carat weight. But other, less tangible factors can also increase the value of a gem. For example, as Pierre Cartier recognized a hundred years ago, an eventful, well-documented history is important, as are the tastes and means of an individual buyer. The price of an individual stone reflects the confluence of these and other factors.
Blue diamonds like the Hope are very rare, and the money being spent to purchase them is enormous. Several large blue diamonds have fetched tens of millions of dollars at auction in recent years:
•The 9.75 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue Zoe sold at Sotheby’s in 2014 for $32.6 million
•The 13.22 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue Winston Blue sold at Christie’s in 2014 for $24.2 million
•The 35.56 carat, Fancy Deep Grayish Blue Wittelsbach-Graff sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $24.3 million
Less well-documented are private sales, where famous stones such as the Heart of Eternity and the Wittelsbach-Graff may have fetched even higher prices.
Computer Modeling
A computer modeling study of the Tavernier, French Blue and Hope diamonds was conducted. The results support the long-held theory that the diamonds are in fact the same stone, concluding that the Hope Diamond is likely the only surviving piece of the diamond originally sold to King Louis XIV–the rest having been ground away during the various recuttings. This research, conducted by Jeffrey Post, Smithsonian curator of the National Gem Collection, Steven Attaway, engineer and gem cutter, and Scott Sucher and Nancy Attaway, gem cutting experts, was featured on the Discovery Channel. The film, “Unsolved History: Hope Diamond,” premiered Feb 10, 2005.
In 2007, a lead cast of the French Blue diamond was discovered in the mineral collection of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, permitting additional refinements to the modeling study.
Boron in Blue Diamonds
The blue color in the Hope Diamond and others like it is caused by trace amounts of boron. The Hope Diamond was tested to measure its chemical composition and determine the concentration of boron. This study used various spectroscopic methods and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy to analyze for boron in natural type IIb blue diamonds, including the Hope Diamond and the Blue Heart Diamond (also a part of the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection). The study found that, on average, the Hope Diamond contains about 0.6 parts per million boron.
Phosphoresence of the Hope Diamond
Curator Dr. Jeffrey Post led a team from the Smithsonian and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to investigate the intense, red-orange phosphorescence exhibited by the Hope Diamond after exposure to ultra-violet light. They discovered that all type IIB blue diamonds exhibit similar phosphorescence behaviors and that the specific phosphorescence spectral properties might be unique to each individual blue diamond, enabling the researchers to essentially “fingerprint” each stone.
The Hope Diamond
•Catalog Number: NMNH G3551-00
•Locality: India
•Weight: 45.52 ct
Gift of Harry Winston, Inc in 1958.
Over 100 million visitors have experienced the beauty of the Hope Diamond since Harry Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. Learn more about this remarkable gem using the tiles below.
Timeline
The French Kings: 1668-1792
1668-1669: Tavernier’s Diamond
King Louis XIV was fond of beautiful and rare gems, especially diamonds. In December of 1668, the explorer Jean-Baptiste Tavernier met with the king to share a collection of diamonds collected on his recently completed trip to India. In February of 1669, King Louis XIV purchased the lot of diamonds, including a large blue diamond weighing 112 3⁄16 old French carats (approximately 115 modern metric carats) for 220,000 livres (Bapst 1889). In recognition of this transaction, the king honored Tavernier with the rank of nobleman (Morel 1988).
It is commonly assumed that Tavernier acquired the diamond on his last journey to India (1664-1668) and that it came from the Kollur Mine of the Golconda region. However, evidence for both source and timing is circumstantial, as Tavernier makes no mention of the acquisition of the diamond in the published accounts of his journeys. The Kollur Mine is considered a likely source because it was known for producing large and colored diamonds (Post and Farges 2014), but there were several diamond mines throughout India during the time of Tavernier’s voyages, and the diamond could have come from any one of them. The diamond must at least have originated in India, as India was the only commercial source of diamonds in Tavernier’s time.
1669-1672: Creating the French Blue
King Louis XIV ordered one of his court jewelers, Jean Pittan the Younger, to supervise the recutting of the 115-carat blue diamond. The king likely ordered the stone recut because of differences between Indian and European tastes in diamonds: Indian gems were cut to retain size and weight, while Europeans prized luster, symmetry and brilliance. It is not known who actually cut the diamond, but the job took about two years to complete. The result was an approximately 69-carat heart-shaped diamond referred to as “the great violet diamond of His Majesty” in the historic royal archives. At that time, “violet” meant a shade of blue. Today, the diamond is most commonly known as the “French Blue” (Post and Farges 2014).
An inventory of the French Crown Jewels from 1691 reveals that the French Blue was “set into gold and mounted on a stick.” In 2012, a computer simulation revealed that eight central facets on the pavilion of the French Blue were cut so as to be visible when one looked through the face of the gem (Farges et al. 2012). When the stone was set in gold, the effect would be the appearance of a gold sun in the center of the blue diamond. Post and Farges (2014) proposed that the stone was cut this way to show the colors of the French monarchy, blue and gold, symbolizing the divine standing and power of King Louis XIV, the Sun King. The diamond was not worn as a piece of jewelry or kept with the French Crown Jewels, but rather was stored in the King’s cabinet of curiosities at Versailles, where he could show it to special guests.
1749: The Order of the Golden Fleece
Louis XIV’s great-grandson, Louis XV, inherited the royal jewels when he ascended to the throne. Around 1749, King Louis XV tasked the Parisian jeweler Pierre-André Jacqumin with creating an emblem of knighthood of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The finished emblem featured a number of spectacular gems, including the French Blue Diamond, the 107-carat Côte de Bretagne spinel (carved into the shape of a dragon and originally thought to be a ruby), and several other diamonds. It was rarely worn, functioning instead as a symbol of the king’s power (Post and Farges 2014).
1791: The Capture of Louis XVI
Amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempted to escape France, but were apprehended and returned to Paris. The French Crown Jewels, including the French Blue Diamond in the Order of the Golden Fleece, were turned over to the revolutionary government and moved to the Garde-Meuble, the Royal Storehouse, where they were put on view for the public once a week until 1792. On visiting days, the doors of the armoires would be opened and a selection of mounted and unmounted jewels could be viewed in special display cases.
1792: The Theft of the French Crown Jewels
On the night of September 11th, 1792, a group of thieves climbed through the first-floor windows of the Garde-Meuble into the room where the French Crown Jewels were stored and escaped with some of the jewels. At the time, no one in the storehouse even realized that a theft had taken place: The seal on the door to the room had not been broken, and no guards were stationed inside of the room. The thieves returned over the following nights to steal more of the jewels. By the evening of September 17th, the group of thieves had grown to about fifty. Acting loudly and carelessly, they attracted the attention of the patrol, putting an end to one of the most curious thefts in history (Morel 1988).
By then, the Order of the Golden Fleece was gone. The French Blue Diamond has not been seen since.
From Europe to America: 1812-1958
1812: A Blue Diamond Appears in London
It is now clear that the French Blue resurfaced in London nearly 20 years later, although no one seems to have recognized it at the time. It had by then been recut to a smaller (though still spectacular) gem, which we know today as the Hope Diamond.
The first reference to this diamond is a sketch and description made in 1812 by the London jeweler John Francillon:
The above drawing is the exact size and shape of a very curious superfine deep blue Diamond. Brilliant cut, and equal to a fine deep blue Sapphire. It is beauty full and all perfection without specks or flaws, and the color even and perfect all over the Diamond. I traced it round the diamond with a pencil by leave of Mr. Daniel Eliason and it is as finely cut as I have ever seen in a Diamond. The color of the Drawing is as near the color of the Diamond as possible.
Francillon does not mention where the diamond came from or who had cut it, nor does he connect it to the French Blue.
Intriguingly, the Francillon Memo is dated just two days after the twenty-year statute of limitations for crimes committed during the French Revolution had passed. The diamond may have resurfaced at this time because the possibility of prosecution and of France reclaiming the diamond was eliminated, making the owner comfortable enough to share the diamond with others (Winters and White 1991).
1813-1823: Mr. Eliason’s Diamond
Several other British naturalists and gem experts made note of a large blue diamond in London in the years following Francillon’s memo. In the 1813 and 1815 editions of his book, A Treatise on Diamonds and Precious Stones, mineralogist and gem connoisseur John Mawe writes that “there is at this time a superlatively fine blue diamond, of above 44 carats, in possession of an individual in London, which may be considered as matchless, and of course of arbitrary value.” Similarly, James Sowerby, a naturalist known for his illustrations of minerals and other objects, wrote that “Daniel Eliason, Esq. has in London, a nearly perfect blue Brilliant, of 44½ carats, that is superior to any other coloured diamond known” (Sowerby 1817).
By 1823, the diamond was no longer in Eliason’s possession. Mawe returned to the subject of the blue diamond in the 1823 edition of his book, writing that:
“A superlatively fine blue diamond weighing 44 carats and valued at £30,000, formerly the property of Mr. Eliason, an eminent diamond merchant, is now said to be in the possession of our most gracious sovereign… The unrivaled gem is of a deep sapphire blue, and from its rarity and color, might have been estimated at a higher sum. It has found its most worthy destination in passing into the possession of a monarch, whose refined taste has ever been conspicuous in the highest degree” (Mawe 1823)
According to Mawe, then, Eliason had parted with the diamond and it had come into the possession of George IV, the King of England. However, no evidence linking the Hope Diamond to the king has been found in the British royal archives, and we do not know whether George IV ever possessed it as either owner or borrower (Post and Farges 2014).
1839: Henry Philip Hope’s Gem Collection
Henry Philip Hope (1774-1839) was a wealthy British banker with an affinity for fine art and precious gems. An 1839 catalogue of his gem collection mentions a large blue diamond weighing 45.5 carats. The diamond would take his name, becoming known as “Hope’s Diamond” or the “Hope Diamond.” The catalogue describes the diamond as “a most magnificent and rare brilliant, of a deep sapphire blue, of the greatest purity, and most beautifully cut” (Hertz 1839). It was set in a medallion with smaller, rose-cut, colorless diamonds surrounding it and a pearl that dropped from the bottom of the medallion as a pendant. Unfortunately, Hope does not record when or where he acquired the diamond in his 1839 catalogue.
Henry Philip Hope died in 1839, leaving his possessions to his three nephews: Henry Thomas, Adrian, and Alexander. In his will, Henry Philip Hope divided his money and property amongst the brothers, but did not leave instructions for the division of his gem collection. Given the immense value of his collection, the Hope brothers argued for years over who would inherit it. In 1849, after ten years of dispute, the brothers reached an agreement: the property went to Adrian, the Hope Pearl and around 700 precious gemstones went to Alexander, and the Hope Diamond and seven other gems went to Henry Thomas (Kurin 2006).
1851: The Great London Exhibition
Henry Thomas Hope loaned the Hope Diamond for display at the Crystal Palace during the Great London Exhibition. According to a catalogue from the exhibition, 28 diamonds from the Henry Philip Hope Collection were exhibited. This suggests that the brother of Henry Thomas, Alexander, must have contributed diamonds to the display effort since Henry Thomas had only inherited eight gems from his uncle and Alexander had inherited the rest (Kurin 2006).
1858: The French Blue Connection
Today, we are certain that the Hope Diamond is the recut French Blue. However, it took 46 years after Francillon described the modern Hope for someone to connect the two diamonds. The French gemologist Charles Barbot was first, speculating in his 1858 book, Traité Complet de Pierres Précieuses, that the Hope Diamond was cut from the French Blue (Post and Farges 2014).
Later authors continued in this track. In 1870, Charles W. King wrote about a likely connection between the two blue diamonds in his book, The Natural History of the Precious Stones and of the Precious Metals. On the subject of “Hope’s Blue Diamond” King writes “suspected to be that of the French Regalia (stolen in 1792), and then weighing 67 car., and afterwards re-cut as a brilliant to its present weight of 44½ carat.”
In 1882, Edwin Streeter wrote about the diamond’s provenance in his book, The Great Diamonds of the World: Their History and Romance:
The disappearance of Tavernier’s rough blue from the French regalia, followed by the unexplained appearance of a cut gem of precisely the same delicate blue tint, and answering in size to the original after due allowance made for loss in cutting, leaves little or no room for doubting the identity of the two stones… It thus appears that the rough un-cut Tavernier, the French “Blue,” lost in 1792, and the “Hope,” are one and the same stone. (Streeter 1882, p. 214).
1887: The Extravagant Life of Lord Francis Hope
Henry Thomas Hope left his possessions, including the Hope Diamond, to his wife Anne Adéle Hope when he passed away in 1862. Anne, in turn, decided to leave the family treasures not to her daughter, Henrietta (whose husband was careless with money and often on the verge of bankruptcy) but to her grandson, Francis Hope. In her 1876 will, Anne named Francis as heir to the family treasures, stipulating that the estates and heirlooms were to be used during his lifetime and then passed on to another Hope descendant. Anne passed away in 1884, and Francis Hope claimed his inheritance when he turned 21, three years later (Kurin 2006).
Lord Francis Hope was less prudent than his grandmother might have hoped. He lived extravagantly, quickly spending his inheritance on traveling, entertainment, and gambling and sinking into tremendous debt. In 1892, he met a showgirl in New York City named May Yohé, a glamorous and charming actress from Pennsylvania. Hope and Yohé married in 1894 and continued to live well beyond their means. To avoid bankruptcy, Hope appealed to his relatives for permission to sell a portion of the family art collection, claiming that he could no longer afford to care for the paintings. After years of litigation, the family finally agreed to allow Hope to sell a selection of the paintings, but the sale was not enough to save him from financial crisis. In 1901, after more litigation with his family, Lord Francis offered the Hope Diamond for sale (Patch 1999).
1901-1907: Crossing the Atlantic
In 1901, Lord Francis Hope sold the Hope Diamond to London diamond merchant Adolf Weil, who sold the diamond to Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. of New York shortly thereafter. Simon Frankel sailed to London from New York to finalize the purchase. One source reported that Frankel paid $250,000 (~6.7 million 2014 dollars) for the diamond (Patch 1999).
Frankel brought the Hope Diamond back to New York to try to sell it in America, but received no reasonable offers. By 1907, the market for diamonds had sharply declined due to a slow economy, and Frankel’s company faced the possibility of bankruptcy (Kurin 2006). The Hope Diamond sat locked away in a New York safe deposit box while Frankel tried to find a buyer.
1908-1909: Selim Habib and Rumors of a Curse
Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. finally found a buyer for the Hope Diamond in 1908: Selim Habib, a Turkish diamond collector and merchant who purchased the Hope Diamond for a reported $200,000 (~5 million 2014 dollars). According to the New York Times, Selim Habib soon had financial troubles, and in 1909, he sold his gem collection, including the Hope Diamond (Kurin, 2006). His financial difficulties and a later, incorrect report of his death at sea contributed to the growing myth of a curse on the Hope Diamond.
Habib’s collection was put up for auction at the Hotel Drouot in Paris, France on June 24, 1909. Jeweler and gem expert Louis Aucoc oversaw the auction, withdrawing the Hope Diamond from the sale before selling it to jeweler C. N. Rosenau for 400,000 francs (Kurin 2006).
1910: Cartier acquired the Hope Diamond
Cartier, a French jewelry house, purchased the Hope Diamond from jeweler C.N. Rosenau in 1910. The Hope Diamond arrived in the U.S. on November 23, 1910, where it was valued at $110,000 for customs plus the $10,000 duty for an unmounted gem (Patch 1999).
Pierre Cartier took on the responsibility of selling the Hope Diamond. Pierre was a talented salesman: Charming, smooth-talking, and sophisticated, he was experienced in the art of selling to wealthy customers, Americans in particular, having worked at Cartier’s New York office.
By this time, the art of developing colorful narratives for famous gems was already well established. Intriguing histories helped with gem sales, and in turn, gave the purchaser an interesting tale to tell admirers at various events. Cartier thus began to fabricate a fanciful story around the Hope Diamond that included a curse, which he would pitch to potential buyers (Kurin 2006).
1912: The McLeans buy the Hope Diamond
In 1912, Pierre Cartier sold the Hope Diamond to an American couple, Ned and Evalyn Walsh McLean. The sale was the result of two years of work.
Pierre identified the McLeans as potential buyers shortly after Cartier purchased the Hope Diamond. Both Evalyn and Ned were heirs to American fortunes, Evalyn’s from mining and Ned’s from newspapers. They were previous, big-spending clients of Cartier, having purchased the 94.8-carat Star of the East Diamond from Cartier in 1908 while they were on their honeymoon. Pierre arranged to meet with them in 1910 while they were on vacation in Paris. He presented his embellished tale of the Hope Diamond’s extraordinary provenance to the McLeans, including the curse that brought bad luck to all who owned it. Evalyn was fascinated with the story and told Pierre that she believed objects that brought bad luck to others would bring good luck to her. Despite her interest, she initially declined to purchase the blue diamond because she did not like its setting (McLean 1936).
Pierre, a persistent man, did not let an old-fashioned setting prevent him from securing the sale. He took the Hope Diamond to New York, where he had it reset into a contemporary mounting. In the new mounting (essentially the same mounting it is in today), the Hope was framed by 16 colorless diamonds and could be worn as part of a head ornament or a diamond necklace. Pierre returned to Washington and left the newly set Hope with Evalyn and Ned over a weekend.
Pierre’s strategy was successful—Evalyn adored the Hope Diamond, and several months later agreed to purchase it from Cartier, settling on a price of $180,000 (Patch 1999) plus the return of an emerald and pearl pendant with diamond necklace that she no longer wanted (McLean 1936). The Hope Diamond became Evalyn Walsh McLean’s signature in the high society of Washington, D.C. She wore it frequently, layered with her other important gems and jewelry, to events and the lavish parties she hosted. Evalyn would even let her Great Dane, Mike, wear the Hope Diamond on his collar.
1947-1949: Evalyn Walsh McLean Passes Away
Evalyn Walsh McLean died from pneumonia on April 26, 1947. She dictated in her will that all of her jewelry be held in trust until her youngest grandchild turned twenty-five, at which point her jewels were to be divided equally by all of her grandchildren. Two years after her death, however, the court ordered the sale of her jewelry collection to pay off debts and claims against her estate (Patch 1999). The Hope Diamond, the Star of the East Diamond, and the rest of her jewelry collection were purchased by jeweler Harry Winston of New York.
1949-1958: Winston and the Court of Jewels
In 1949, Harry Winston purchased the Hope Diamond along with the rest of the Evalyn Walsh McLean’s jewelry collection. Winston incoporated McLean’s jewelry into the Court of Jewels, a traveling exhibition of gems supplemented by a jewelry fashion show. Large and famous diamonds, including the Hope Diamond, the Star of the East Diamond, and the 127-carat Portuguese Diamond (now also part of the Smithsonian’s collection), were featured as part of the show. The exhibit travelled throughout America from 1949 to 1953 to teach the public about precious gems and raise money for civic and charitable organizations (Harry Winston, Inc.). Harry Winston once stated: “I want the public to know more about precious gems. With so much expensive junk jewelry around these days, people forget that a good diamond, ruby, or emerald, however small, is a possession to be prized for generations” (Tupper and Tupper 1947).
At the Smithsonian: 1958-Present
1958: The Hope Diamond comes to the Smithsonian
In 1958, Harry Winston donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution. On November 10th, the Hope arrived at the Smithsonian in a plain brown package shipped by registered mail (and insured for a sum of one million dollars). Mrs. Harry Winston presented the Hope Diamond to Dr. Leonard Carmichael, Secretary of the Smithsonian, and Dr. George S. Switzer, Curator of Mineralogy. The Hope Diamond was exhibited in the Gem Hall at the National Museum of Natural History and almost immediately became its premier attraction.
1962: A Visit to France
With the encouragement of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the Hope Diamond was loaned for a month to the Louvre Museum for the exhibition “Ten Centuries of French Jewels.” It was displayed with two famous diamonds, the Regent (a 140.50-carat brilliant cushion cut diamond) and the Sancy (a pale yellow 55.23-carat pear-shaped diamond). Also on display was the Côte de Bretagne, a red spinel carved in the shape of a dragon that, along with the French Blue Diamond, had been part of Louis XV’s elaborate emblem of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This exhibition marked the reunion of these two gems after 170 years. In return, the Louvre’s masterpiece, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, was loaned to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from January 8 to February 3, 1963.
1965: At the Rand Easter Show in South Africa
The Hope Diamond was loaned to DeBeers and traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa for the Rand Easter Show, one of the largest consumer exhibitions in the world. The Hope Diamond was the main attraction in the jewel box in the Diamond Pavilion. Surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, it was exhibited on a finely woven spider’s web supported by the bare branches of a rose bush and illuminated from above.
1982: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art
In November 1982, Ronald Winston, son of Harry Winston, hosted 1,200 guests in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Engelhard Court. (Kurin 2006) For the glittering gala, the Hope Diamond was reunited with the Star of the East (a 94.80-carat pear-shaped diamond previously owned by Evalyn Walsh McLean) and the Idol’s Eye (a 70.21-carat rounded pear-shape diamond exhibited at the Rand Easter Show in 1965).
1997: The New Harry Winston Gallery
The Hope Diamond was put on display in the Harry Winston Gallery of the newly completed Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals in the National Museum of Natural History. The diamond is mounted on a rotating pedestal so that it can be viewed from all four sides of the vault.
2009-2010: Celebrating 50 years at the Smithsonian
In September 2009, the Hope Diamond was removed from its setting and exhibited unmounted for the first time ever. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian, an online contest was used to select a commemorative necklace from one of three designs submitted by Harry Winston, Inc. The winning entry, “Embracing Hope”, was designed by Maurice Galli. This modern design consisted of three-dimensional ribbons set with baguette-cut diamonds wrapping the Hope Diamond in an exquisite embrace. The Hope Diamond was set in the Embracing Hope necklace and displayed for over a year before being returned to its original Cartier mounting.
2017: The Hope Diamond Today
Today, the Hope Diamond remains one of the most popular objects at the Smithsonian, attracting millions of visitors every year. Even now, the Hope retains much of its mystery, and Smithsonain scientists continue to study it to better understand its eventful history and rare beauty.
Grading the Hope
For many years, the weight of the Hope Diamond was not precisely known, with reports of its weight ranging from 44 carats to 45.5 carats. On November 13, 1975, the Hope Diamond was removed from its setting and found to weigh 45.52 carats.
Gemologists from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) visited the Smithsonian in 1988 to grade the Hope Diamond. They observed that the gem showed evidence of wear, that it had a remarkably strong phosphorescence, and that its clarity was slightly affected by a whitish graining that is common to blue diamonds. They described its color as fancy dark grayish-blue and its clarity as VS1 (Crowningshield 1989).
In 1996, the Hope Diamond necklace was sent to Harry Winston, Inc. for cleaning and minor restoration work. The diamond was removed from its setting and re-examined by the GIA. In this report, the Hope’s color was described as a a natural fancy deep grayish-blue (reflecting a change in GIA’s nomenclature for grading, not a change in the assessment of the diamond).
How much is the Hope Diamond worth?
We at the Smithsonian like to say that the Hope Diamond is priceless. Its size, color, and eventful history, as well as its long tenure at the heart of the Smithsonian’s gem collection, make it a true American treasure. In any case, it’s not for sale!
What can we say about the value of a gem like the Hope, if we’re not going to commit to a specific number? A large part of a gem’s value comes from its physical properties: color, clarity, cut, and carat weight. But other, less tangible factors can also increase the value of a gem. For example, as Pierre Cartier recognized a hundred years ago, an eventful, well-documented history is important, as are the tastes and means of an individual buyer. The price of an individual stone reflects the confluence of these and other factors.
Blue diamonds like the Hope are very rare, and the money being spent to purchase them is enormous. Several large blue diamonds have fetched tens of millions of dollars at auction in recent years:
•The 9.75 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue Zoe sold at Sotheby’s in 2014 for $32.6 million
•The 13.22 carat, Fancy Vivid Blue Winston Blue sold at Christie’s in 2014 for $24.2 million
•The 35.56 carat, Fancy Deep Grayish Blue Wittelsbach-Graff sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $24.3 million
Less well-documented are private sales, where famous stones such as the Heart of Eternity and the Wittelsbach-Graff may have fetched even higher prices.
Computer Modeling
A computer modeling study of the Tavernier, French Blue and Hope diamonds was conducted. The results support the long-held theory that the diamonds are in fact the same stone, concluding that the Hope Diamond is likely the only surviving piece of the diamond originally sold to King Louis XIV–the rest having been ground away during the various recuttings. This research, conducted by Jeffrey Post, Smithsonian curator of the National Gem Collection, Steven Attaway, engineer and gem cutter, and Scott Sucher and Nancy Attaway, gem cutting experts, was featured on the Discovery Channel. The film, “Unsolved History: Hope Diamond,” premiered Feb 10, 2005.
In 2007, a lead cast of the French Blue diamond was discovered in the mineral collection of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, permitting additional refinements to the modeling study.
Boron in Blue Diamonds
The blue color in the Hope Diamond and others like it is caused by trace amounts of boron. The Hope Diamond was tested to measure its chemical composition and determine the concentration of boron. This study used various spectroscopic methods and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy to analyze for boron in natural type IIb blue diamonds, including the Hope Diamond and the Blue Heart Diamond (also a part of the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection). The study found that, on average, the Hope Diamond contains about 0.6 parts per million boron.
Phosphoresence of the Hope Diamond
Curator Dr. Jeffrey Post led a team from the Smithsonian and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to investigate the intense, red-orange phosphorescence exhibited by the Hope Diamond after exposure to ultra-violet light. They discovered that all type IIB blue diamonds exhibit similar phosphorescence behaviors and that the specific phosphorescence spectral properties might be unique to each individual blue diamond, enabling the researchers to essentially “fingerprint” each stone.